The world has stepped back to admire Dyson’s new CameraJet toothbrush. That’s all well and good. For Dyson, that is. But what good will it do for its users?

Earlier this year at the CES tech event, a stream of health gadgets with integrated AI were displayed to the public, including the Y-Brush Halo, which is supposed to be able to flag signs associated with hundreds of health conditions. There were mirrors that reflect back health data, rings that keep healthcare providers informed, and even toilets that analyse what is given to them.

For the most part, this was tech that you didn’t necessarily have to engage with. Today’s AI-integrated devices have begun to call for your attention and involvement.

Too much data

Dyson is bringing its extravagantly intelligent toothbrush to market at around $500. It’s a smart piece of tech engineering that uses a 100,000-pixel camera inside your mouth and shows you what’s left of yesterday’s dinner between your teeth in its companion app, giving you cleaning and water jet instructions. That, of course, is information we have been waiting for all through human existence.

The last thing I really want to know every morning is what’s between my teeth. Everyday images and videos of dental information are not just distasteful but are bound to take up quite a bit of time. Brushing one’s teeth used to be a two-minute chore. But this will change, if tech companies have their way. Taking selfies is apparently not enough vanity. We must now move on to occupying ourselves with what’s going on inside our bodies even when it’s all routine. Should we have an intestinal camera next? They do exist, medically, but why not watch the riveting journey of every morsel we consume through the alimentary tract and perhaps even share it on social media, like people do with their ultrasounds?

We should know to stop at the point of absurdity, but the trouble is, consumer tech never recognizes absurdity when there is data to be harvested.

Quantified self

Nearly two decades ago, tech writers Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf from Wired came up with the phrase the “quantified self,” to champion the noble cause of “self-knowledge through numbers.” Back then, it was an eager, voluntary subculture of enthusiasts who were logging running miles, sleep hours, or storing mood notes into spreadsheets to see what made them tick.

What consumer tech has done with that ideal is interesting: it has automated and commercialized self-tracking into a continuous audit. It’s no longer about discovering personal patterns: it’s about keeping you tethered to a screen, anxiously verifying that you are functioning properly.

My psychiatrist friends tell me they’re already exasperated with the tracking information their patients bring to them, adding another layer of anxiety and obsession to their existing issues. Wearables invite you to log your mood each day, setting up the habit of always unnaturally monitoring your own feelings. Your health and sleep stats are always around for you to worry over, turning your attention further inward and away from the real business of living. It can even begin to override your own experiences, until you don’t know the difference.

Aiming for perfect

Sleep clinicians once coined the term orthosomnia, describing patients who became preoccupied with getting their wearable sleep data “right.” They were chasing perfect sleep partly on the basis of what their trackers told them, even when the tracker and their own experience didn’t necessarily agree. We have reached the peculiar point where I can feel perfectly fine until my watch informs me that apparently I’m not.

AI now really adds another layer to push self-absorption forward. It doesn’t just measure us, it interprets us to ourselves. After all, the AI in my watch or phone doesn’t just tell me how fast my heart is beating, it knows my baseline and can flag deviations. AI is becoming extraordinarily good at telling us things about ourselves. We may need to become equally good at deciding which things we don’t need to know.

I’m quite wary of my water jet dental gadget as it is. But having made my peace with it, I think I’d rather keep my toothbrush routine simple.

The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.

Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.

The world has stepped back to admire Dyson’s new CameraJet toothbrush. That’s all well and good. For Dyson, that is. But what good will it do for its users?

Earlier this year at the CES tech event, a stream of health gadgets with integrated AI were displayed to the public, including the Y-Brush Halo, which is supposed to be able to flag signs associated with hundreds of health conditions. There were mirrors that reflect back health data, rings that keep healthcare providers informed, and even toilets that analyse what is given to them.

For the most part, this was tech that you didn’t necessarily have to engage with. Today’s AI-integrated devices have begun to call for your attention and involvement.

Too much data

Dyson is bringing its extravagantly intelligent toothbrush to market at around $500. It’s a smart piece of tech engineering that uses a 100,000-pixel camera inside your mouth and shows you what’s left of yesterday’s dinner between your teeth in its companion app, giving you cleaning and water jet instructions. That, of course, is information we have been waiting for all through human existence.

The last thing I really want to know every morning is what’s between my teeth. Everyday images and videos of dental information are not just distasteful but are bound to take up quite a bit of time. Brushing one’s teeth used to be a two-minute chore. But this will change, if tech companies have their way. Taking selfies is apparently not enough vanity. We must now move on to occupying ourselves with what’s going on inside our bodies even when it’s all routine. Should we have an intestinal camera next? They do exist, medically, but why not watch the riveting journey of every morsel we consume through the alimentary tract and perhaps even share it on social media, like people do with their ultrasounds?

We should know to stop at the point of absurdity, but the trouble is, consumer tech never recognizes absurdity when there is data to be harvested.

Quantified self

Nearly two decades ago, tech writers Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf from Wired came up with the phrase the “quantified self,” to champion the noble cause of “self-knowledge through numbers.” Back then, it was an eager, voluntary subculture of enthusiasts who were logging running miles, sleep hours, or storing mood notes into spreadsheets to see what made them tick.

What consumer tech has done with that ideal is interesting: it has automated and commercialized self-tracking into a continuous audit. It’s no longer about discovering personal patterns: it’s about keeping you tethered to a screen, anxiously verifying that you are functioning properly.

My psychiatrist friends tell me they’re already exasperated with the tracking information their patients bring to them, adding another layer of anxiety and obsession to their existing issues. Wearables invite you to log your mood each day, setting up the habit of always unnaturally monitoring your own feelings. Your health and sleep stats are always around for you to worry over, turning your attention further inward and away from the real business of living. It can even begin to override your own experiences, until you don’t know the difference.

Aiming for perfect

Sleep clinicians once coined the term orthosomnia, describing patients who became preoccupied with getting their wearable sleep data “right.” They were chasing perfect sleep partly on the basis of what their trackers told them, even when the tracker and their own experience didn’t necessarily agree. We have reached the peculiar point where I can feel perfectly fine until my watch informs me that apparently I’m not.

AI now really adds another layer to push self-absorption forward. It doesn’t just measure us, it interprets us to ourselves. After all, the AI in my watch or phone doesn’t just tell me how fast my heart is beating, it knows my baseline and can flag deviations. AI is becoming extraordinarily good at telling us things about ourselves. We may need to become equally good at deciding which things we don’t need to know.

I’m quite wary of my water jet dental gadget as it is. But having made my peace with it, I think I’d rather keep my toothbrush routine simple.

The New Normal: The world is at an inflexion point. Artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be as massive a revolution as the Internet has been. The option to just stay away from AI will not be available to most people, as all the tech we use takes the AI route. This column series introduces AI to the non-techie in an easy and relatable way, aiming to demystify and help a user to actually put the technology to good use in everyday life.

Mala Bhargava is most often described as a ‘veteran’ writer who has contributed to several publications in India since 1995. Her domain is personal tech, and she writes to simplify and demystify technology for a non-techie audience.