A few months ago, I wrote that I was planning on migrating from the Pixel line of phones to the Nothing Phone 3. But then Nothing's Carl Pei announced that the Nothing Phone 3 would be all in on artificial intelligence (AI) in ways no other phone is. Disappointed, I decided I'd stick with the Pixel lineup, as it seemed every company was buying what AI was selling.
Let me explain.
What is bloatware?
Sometime around 2010 or so, phone manufacturers and carriers started adding extra apps to Android. Nearly all of those apps were redundant, and a good half were poorly crafted (at best). Known as bloatware, those apps would remain on the devices, never used, and could not be removed.
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Bloatware is software that "bloats" the OS and takes up precious space. This was a serious problem 15 years ago, as many phones had very little internal storage to spare. Thanks to bloatware, you'd have to regularly delete things from your phone to prevent the local storage from filling up and the device becoming unusable. I remember doing it almost monthly.
Now that our phones tend to have plenty of local storage, bloatware isn't quite the issue it once was. But that doesn't mean it should be okay for companies to load phones with apps that'll never get used.
Although AI doesn't fall into that category, I foresee AI forcing manufacturers to increase internal storage size, use ever-faster CPUs, and add more RAM than a phone should require.
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In other words, AI is one of the major driving forces behind the increasing need for "more." The collateral damage of that will be consumers having to pay a higher price for devices — all for something the majority of us probably won't use.
Okay, that's not exactly fair. Consumers will use AI, at least until the novelty wears off. Once that happens, the AI components of a phone's OS will just sit there, taking up space. Of course, if Google has its way, AI will be so deeply embedded in the OS that no app will go untouched. All the while, Pixel phones will need to be even more powerful and costly.
Apple isn't too far behind. Neither is Samsung, or Nothing — the list goes on and on.
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Again, I'm not saying AI doesn't have its place. But do users really need the power of AI in their mobile devices?
Back when Android was all about Google Assistant, there was no concern that that app would become too embedded in our devices or require more powerful hardware. And guess what? We got along fine without AI — we didn't need it to do the things we'd been doing ourselves for years.
Those days are over. We're now experiencing the AI-ification of our phones and tablets, and we can do little about it. AI will consume drive space and CPU cycles, be trained on our comings, goings, and creations, and develop profiles on us to better "serve" us (or the corporations that create it).
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I'm not against AI, so long as it's used for good and with good reason. Taking up tons of space and CPU cycles on our devices without our consent does not qualify as good. With AI demanding more and more software and hardware, it's a fairly logical conclusion that it will continue to bloat our phones like it's 2010 again, and we'll feel like we're paying considerably more for the devices we need.
What can you do about it?
Not much. But if you really want to avoid AI, you could look at low- to mid-range devices or install a custom read-only memory (ROM) on your Android device. However, ROMs are quite challenging to install, and you're on your own with support and updates.
Another option would be to keep the phone you have. Yes, we tend to be at the mercy of our consumer brains and feel the need to upgrade every year or two, but if you can fight that urge, you'll remain AI-free for a while (especially if your phone doesn't support Android 15).
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The solution to this issue would be for developers to allow users to disable AI functionality on mobile devices. If you don't want AI, you should be able to toggle an AI integration setting on your phone and tap an On/Off switch to disable it. Then you won't have to worry about your CPU working overtime to churn out poorly written emails.
Of course, that's probably not going to happen. AI is the popular kid in school at the moment and tech companies will continue to milk it for all its worth. All the while, consumers have to deal with software that's taking up drive space and CPU cycles.