📱 Apple Builds AI Pin After Humane's Failure

Plus Musk repeats AI prediction and China mandates 70% adoption

January 26, 2026

Reading time: 5 minutes

🗞️In this edition

  • Apple Developing AI Pin After Humane's $230M Failure

  • Sponsored: Liminary — Your memory for the internet.

  • Musk Predicts AI Smarter Than Humans by End of 2026

  • China Plans AI in Every Industry by 2030

  • In other AI news –

    • Palantir CEO Says AI Will Destroy Humanities Jobs

    • Memory Chip Stocks Surge as AI Creates Shortage

    • Smartphones Face Threat From AI Wearables and Agents

  • 4 must-try AI tools

Three bets this week that don't add up at first.

One company is building something that just failed spectacularly for someone else. Another is repeating a prediction that didn't come true last year. And a third is forcing an entire economy to adopt technology before proving it works.

Each move reveals something about urgency without validation. About building because you have to be seen doing something, not because there's evidence it matters.

The pressure to act is overtaking the question of whether you should.

This edition looks at what happens when being first becomes more important than being right.

What's happening:

Apple is developing an AI-powered wearable pin the size of an AirTag, according to The Information. The device includes two cameras, three microphones, a speaker, and wireless charging.

The pin is a thin, flat disc with aluminum and glass. One camera is standard, one is wide-angle. The physical control button sits on one edge.

The project is in early development and could launch around 2027, or be canceled entirely. Apple hasn't commented publicly.

The pin would run the new Siri chatbot Apple plans for iOS 27, powered by Google's Gemini. The timing follows OpenAI announcing its own hardware device days earlier.

Why this is important:

Apple is chasing a category that already failed spectacularly. Humane's AI Pin burned $230 million and shut down operations. The product was broken from launch.

The announcement comes days after OpenAI revealed hardware plans. That's reactive, not strategic. Apple usually waits and perfects, not rushes to compete.

Privacy concerns are obvious. A wearable with cameras and microphones raises questions Apple built its brand avoiding. No explanation yet on data handling.

There's no clear use case. The reports describe hardware but not what users would actually do with it. That's backwards for a company known for solving real problems.

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What's happening:

Elon Musk told Davos on Thursday that AI could surpass human intelligence by the end of 2026. He said AI would exceed collective human intelligence by 2030 or 2031.

"I think we might have AI that is smarter than any human by the end of this year," Musk said during a conversation with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink. "No later than next year."

Musk also declared "we have entered the Singularity" on X days earlier. The Singularity refers to when AI surpasses human intelligence and begins improving itself without human help.

He predicted the same thing in 2024, claiming AGI would arrive by 2025. That didn't happen. In 2020, he predicted AI would surpass humans within five years. That also didn't happen.

Why this is important:

Musk has a pattern of overpromising AI timelines. Gary Marcus, cognitive scientist at NYU, said "Elon has a track record of overoptimistic predictions about AI."

The predictions serve business purposes. When Musk talks about AGI arriving soon, it justifies Tesla's AI spending and xAI's fundraising. The hype creates urgency.

Other experts disagree with Musk's timeline. Many say true AGI requires consciousness or self-awareness, not just processing power. Current AI systems don't think, they pattern-match.

The Singularity concept assumes AI will improve itself exponentially once it surpasses humans. But that assumes AI wants to improve itself, which requires goals and motivation machines don't have.

Comments from the editor:

Musk saying AI surpasses humans "by the end of this year" in January gives him 11 months of runway before anyone can call him wrong again.

The BlackRock CEO had the audience applaud louder for Musk before starting. That's the dynamic: the world's biggest asset manager positioning Musk as visionary while he makes unprovable claims.

"We have entered the Singularity" is marketing language. The Singularity is supposed to be unmistakable. If you have to announce it, we haven't entered it.

Musk warned about AI destroying humanity for years while building AI companies. Now he's saying AI will make life abundant. The message changes based on what he's selling.

What's happening:

China's new Five-Year Plan puts AI everywhere. The government wants AI in manufacturing, shipping, energy, transport, hospitals, and services by 2035.

This isn't about adding AI tools to current work. It means rebuilding how the entire economy runs with AI built in from the start.

By 2027, 70% of Chinese businesses must use AI agents and smart devices. By 2030, that number jumps to 90%. The government is forcing adoption, not asking for it.

China focuses on free, open-source AI models anyone can use. DeepSeek is an example. The goal is spreading AI benefits across all industries, not just tech companies.

Why this is important:

China treats AI like roads or electricity, not like software you buy. The US builds AI companies. China is rebuilding its entire economy to run on AI.

The 70% target by 2027 is fast. Most Chinese businesses have three years to adopt AI whether they want to or not. That's government orders, not business choice.

Free open-source models sound good. But when countries build systems on China's free AI, they become dependent without realizing it. That's lock-in through free access.

China is gambling its entire economy on this working. It's abandoning what made them successful for something unproven. That's a huge risk happening all at once.

  1. Chaindesk - A no-code platform that allows users to create custom AI chatbots trained on their own data

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  4. Jason AI - A tool for automating B2B conversations and bookings

The moves keep getting more aggressive.

Building hardware for a category that burned $230 million and shut down. Declaring the Singularity has arrived when nothing looks different. Mandating adoption across an entire economy in three years.

None of these are careful strategies. They're bets that moving fast matters more than getting it right. That announcing first beats delivering actually.

What matters now is whether any of this creates value people want. Or whether we're watching companies, founders, and governments convince themselves that building AI into everything is the same as making anything better.

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