A Linguistic Analysis of Handheld AI Assistants: What is “Natural Speech”?

A Linguistic Analysis of Handheld AI Assistants: What is “Natural Speech”?

Ricky Underwood

In the age of rapid AI development, linguistics is at the forefront of human-machine interaction. This paper aims to define and analyze the concept of “natural language” as used to market a new line of AI devices. These devices are AI assistant dedicated hardware devices, with a new type of language model. For this analysis, the Rabbit R1 and its Large Action Model was chosen. By supplementing with existing literature about large language AI models, this paper draws on advertisements of the R1 and tech influencer discourse to answer the question “What is natural language, and how is it advertised?” This paper concludes that natural language is primarily characterized by context awareness, filtering non-action language, and interpreting preference, the likes of which that is not currently available to current consumer AI models. The paper also questions the way in which the R1 language model is able to understand context, as well as the future of this type of device in the current consumer tech market.