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You can't just slap AI onto an existing design.
The wants vs. the needs according to Andy would make us all be like this with no exception:
To everyone saying "I want a petrel for a progression to tech, but I use AI now"
Well use an SPG. It'll ease your transition to tech.
Failure of a dive computer isn't life critical if you have a back up comp/timer and printed schedule.
Failure of an AI transmitter attached to the HP port reduces my available gas.
That's the difference.
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I think the truth behind much of this is that some tec. divers want the tec. diving community to be Shearwater's only child, don't want a separate rec. diving community sibling, and both in these and past threads the contention that A.I. would introduce an unacceptable potential failure point & render the product potentially unreliable is a red herring rationalization in the service of the true agenda.
I can relate. I was an only child, and from early on unequivocally did not want a sibling.
Richard.
I firmly believe that, one day, technological advances like AI will be standard in technical diving. But, to date, I don't see that the equipment technology level is successful in simplifying the processes of technical diving. AI adds complexity to the processes and protocols of tech diving, and increases failure risks, for the spurious benefit of a minor convenience.
What I've tried to do in this, and other, threads is simply educate recreational divers on the mindset of technical divers - whereby a minor convenience (a 'want') is largely irrelevant in comparison to applying principles ('needs') of simplicity, life support redundancy and reliability.
In all honesty, adding AI to a Shearwater would have little impact on a technical diver who choose not to use it. There might be more complexity to the menu architecture and a price increase. As a technical diver, my rationalization is that some drawbacks versus no benefits is a bad trade-off. So that's what drives my opinion.
If Shearwater intends to create dedicated technical diving instruments, then adding AI is a departure from their intentions. If, however, they saw benefit in creating more general diving instruments, with a wider spectrum of features that appealed to a wider demographic of (recreational) divers, then AI would be one of many functions they could consider adding.
All I can say is that with the Predator and Petrel they got the balance just right for technical diving. Changing that formula might have a negative impact on their perceived desirability in the tech community.
Personally, I can see that recreational divers have very little 'need' for many of the functions and features they profess to 'want'. There are also many, many recreational diving computers on the market. In contrast, there are very few dedicated technical diving computers in production. Until now, I've seen no real justification for watering down a market-leading niche product just to satisfy the wants and whims of divers that product (... the company) never sought to appeal to.
Serious tech divers just don't want AI. It offers no benefit in safety and simplicity. It does cause procedural and protocol issues; such as gas analysis, gas input and gas switching. It adds links to the accident chain that don't need to be there.
This. Pretty much definition, tech diving involves multiple gasses and I don't see AI working in that scenario. Having AI on backgas only, and using SPGs on stages etc, makes no sense.
Beyond that, my guess is the owners of SW are less motivated by profit than they are by building the "perfect" dive computer.