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What Do the Public Think of Foldables and AI?

Carl St. James
4 min readFeb 21, 2024

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Having a Chat. Not the subjects of the article. (Photo Credit: Author)

Coffee Shop Gossip — I live in a bubble. I have surrounded myself with a carefully curated subscription list of tech channels on YouTube. I listen to their podcasts. I read the tech blogs and write about it myself. I even still buy magazines because, yeah thats still a thing. When you live in a bubble, self-imposed or otherwise its easy to become swallowed by hype and in the current climate the buzzwords on everyone’s lips are AI, foldables and AR.

I think its fair to say ChatGPT took everyone by surprise at the end of 2022 by showing a computer interface able to chat, ‘think’ and create independently. Foldable phones have been created in part as a reaction to the maturity of the classic iPhone 4 chassis and a need to generate more hype but they also have their advocates who cannot live without them. Augmented Reality has been around for longer than you’d think but is everywhere on YouTube thanks to Kylo Ren’s visor.

But what about life on the outside? Have these things caught on with the general public? This article was inspired in part by a conversation I overheard between 2 baristas at a coffee shop in the train station. One staff member had left their flip phone, a Samsung Z Flip on the side and his colleague picked it up and asked his opinion. He exclaimed that he was going to exchange it for, in his words ‘a normal phone’. His…

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Carl St. James
Carl St. James

Written by Carl St. James

Making sense of modern technology, design and culture.

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