Reviewer's AI wearable that records everything left her feeling gaslit

A reviewer who spent weeks wearing Amazon's Bee Frontier says it made her feel gaslit. The device records conversations and uses AI to summarize them. Victoria Song of The Verge says its summaries often did not match what she remembers. After three weeks, her therapist of 11 years suggested she throw it out a window.

What Bee does

Bee is an always-recording wearable. It listens to your conversations, then transcribes and summarizes them with AI. It also suggests to-dos in a feature called List and points out areas to improve in one called Grow. A chatbot can answer questions about you or about what was said and when.

Song first tested Bee early last year. Since then, it has gotten better at telling her speech from TV dialogue. It can now pull from her calendar and photos app, and suggest things to buy on Amazon based on what she has said. For some work tasks, it helped her remember talking points.

Where it went wrong

The errors ranged from funny to unsettling. In three weeks, Bee concluded she often argues with a coworker's spouse, whom she has never met. It said she thinks a family member has undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which no one ever said. It also treated a joke about wearing good pants to video calls as fact.

It also miscounted her pets. She has two cats, but the family uses many nicknames for them. Bee decided she has about six more cats, including one called Potato Demon.

When the topic was serious

The harder moment came after a therapy session. Bee generated a "fact" about domestic violence she experienced as a child. Users approve these facts by swiping right or reject them by swiping left. Song hated having to approve it, and the summary was titled "Reclaiming Reality from Manipulative Power."

Bee also described her as deeply unsettled and the session as intense and emotionally raw. She remembers it as cathartic, with moments of laughter. She says she forgot to turn Bee off, because these devices are built so you forget they are listening.

Why it matters beyond one review

A wearable that records everything also records the people around you. Song had to ask her therapist for consent to wear it in a session. When the AI gets someone wrong, the error sits in a record with your name on it. It is easy to forget the device is on.

The excerpt does not say how Bee stores or protects recordings, what it costs, or whether Amazon plans fixes for these mistakes.