Survey shows most people wouldn't pay extra for AI-enhanced hardware

[midian182]

Facepalm: Would you be willing to pay more money for your hardware if it came with extra AI features and capabilities? Not too surprisingly, the vast majority of PC users would answer that question with a resounding "no," a fact illustrated by a recent survey.

Companies are going all-in on artificial intelligence right now, investing millions or even billions into the area while slapping the AI initialism on their products, even when doing so seems strange and pointless.

Heavy investment and increasingly powerful hardware tend to mean more expensive products. To discover if people would be willing to pay extra for hardware with AI capabilities, the question was asked on the TechPowerUp forums.

The results show that over 22,000 people, a massive 84% of the overall vote, said no, they would not pay more. More than 2,200 participants said they didn't know, while just under 2,000 voters said yes.

AMD is one company that is making its focus on all things AI abundantly clear. Team Red's Strix Point mobile chips carry the Ryzen AI 300 branding and feature the XDNA 2 NPU, which more than triples the performance of current-gen XDNA NPUs.

In May, AMD wrote a blog post titled "55 years of AMD innovation," in which the term "AI" was mentioned 23 times.

Elsewhere, Intel has confirmed that its rival Lunar Lake AI laptop CPUs are expected to be unveiled between the 17th and 24th of September, going on sale by September 25.

Processors from AMD and Intel are also set to go up against the Copilot+ AI PCs powered by the Snapdragon X Elite and Snapdragon X Plus processors. Devices must meet Microsoft's Copilot+ standard, which requires laptops to include an NPU capable of processing over 40 trillion operations per second.

There are no indications that AI laptops will be considerably more expensive than the regular versions – some of the Snapdragon-powered PCs are reasonably priced – but there's no guarantee that won't change as hardware and software become more powerful.

While companies continue to throw everything they have into AI, some experts are concerned that the amount of money being poured into the industry might lead to a dot-com-style bubble that inevitably bursts, causing an industry-wide disaster.

Permalink to story:

Survey shows most people wouldn't pay extra for AI-enhanced hardware

 

[Neatfeatguy]

I already have a phone with AI. My Galaxy S8. Suck on that!

Yep, it has what you stupid companies today call "AI". The phone keeps tabs on apps used, how often and how long and when you use them. Then it tries to help you out by bringing those apps it "thinks" you will most likely use to the top so you don't have to go looking for them.

That's right. A phone that is over 7 years old has secretly beat all these other stupid companies to the "AI" game. All you people just catching up to where I have been these past 7 years....you're all pathetic losers! HA! I win!

This "AI" crap is stupid.

 

[winjer]

The problem is that most AI programs, are just spyware on steroids.

 

[yRaz]

So I see a use for AI in games that not many people are considering right now, but I've seen some videos of it and it's already a working concept.

AI generated dialog and quests in single player games. Not just that, but one video I saw didn't have dialog options, you actually talked to the NPC and the AI created a voice generated response that was actually very good. If I wasn't looking for the "AI speech" sound that we're all familiar with I likely wouldn't have noticed it.

If we can get games that make use of AI in this manner to create unique experiences then I would absolutely be willing to pay for it. Imagine having an entirely unique Skyrim experience. The only thing close to this was the Radiant AI in oblivion that was so bad that it was actually good.

I would be 100% willing to pay for Ai hardware that allowed me to indefinitely have unique experiences in a video. I believe that this idea truly create a "next gen" gaming experience. I also think that in order to implment this that having a dedicated "AI card" or "NPU" (whatever it ends up being called) in your system will be necessary. GPUs are great the amount of processing power needed for processing responses and creating dialog to fit that will take MASSIVE amounts of compute power to run effectively in a game. I'm saying you will need a second 4090 or better to do this effectively. I doubt the integrated AI in these chips is powerful enough to pull something like this off.

 

[MSIGamer]

Meanwhile at Intel: let's put full marketing effort into AI and Copilot ready PCs and completely ignore our last gen instability issues!
Also: anyone got any dirt on AMD? We're putting together a slide show about how bad they are while not mentioning our own products.

 

[Strontium]

I would pay more to NOT have AI capable hardware. I can't wait until this AI bubble bursts. It's I.d.I.o.t.I.c.

W-T-F is the word I-d-I-o-t-I-c censored? What a world this is becoming.

 

[zamroni111]

The npu circuit in intel lunar lake is almost as big as the 4 p core.
customers do indeed pays for it "thanks" to microsoft

 

[StupidPeopleSuk]

Even if you REFUSE to pay for the hardware, the AI will just take the money from your bank account(s) anyways, cause.....

"Resistance is futile"

It will charge you for generating a bank statement that shows that they charged you for charging you for taking the money, and then hold the statement as ransom until you pay them again to be able to access said statements...

 

[Watzupken]

AI is not useless. It can help from time to time. The problem however is this push to include faster AI hardware in consumer products where most people can’t be bothered. It’s not like I am running ChatGPT locally. And to be honest, these NPUs pale in comparison to say a dedicated low end Nvidia GPU. So it’s a half baked solution, that is just good for some basic AI use case. For hardware enthusiasts, adding NPU is probably what Steve from Gamers Nexus famously said, “waste of sand”. Rather hardware enthusiasts would prefer beefier hardware for higher performance. Again, most people buying a laptop or mobile device are unlikely to care or use the AI capabilities onboard their devices. They just need something they can do their work and for leisure usage. In my opinion, the harder they market, the more it tells me the demand is very weak. Otherwise, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on marketing if the “ball is rolling”.

 

[DrSuess]

I'm getting by just fine without AI, I don't have any interest in paying for something I am not interested in. Maybe in the future but not now.

 

[daffy duck]

My dream is for Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, Microsoft etc, to crash and burn when the AI bubble bursts.

 

[hahahanoobs]

There isn't much to get excited about yet.
I'm good with using Co-Pilot in Edge once in a while for now.

 

[whateversa]

I already have a phone with AI. My Galaxy S8. Suck on that!

Yep, it has what you stupid companies today call "AI". The phone keeps tabs on apps used, how often and how long and when you use them. Then it tries to help you out by bringing those apps it "thinks" you will most likely use to the top so you don't have to go looking for them.

That's right. A phone that is over 7 years old has secretly beat all these other stupid companies to the "AI" game. All you people just catching up to where I have been these past 7 years....you're all pathetic losers! HA! I win!

This "AI" crap is stupid.

My old Huawei Mate 10 Pro was the first phone with an AI chip (also around 7+ years ago).. did the same thing you mention... Did it have a real world impact? Doubt it. Was AI needed for that functionality - NO! Its just marketing junk.

Now people market washing machines as having AI chips to calculate water usage - which they've been doing fine without AI chips for decades...