HP printers apparently have AI now, because of course they do

The technology industry over the last few years has felt a lot like an episode of the original Power Rangers: It’s AI, AI, AI. Artificial intelligence already had a nebulous and inconsistent definition here in the real world (almost everything we’re calling “AI” now is machine learning, not AI in the science fiction sense), but it’s getting truly ridiculous.

The latest perpetrator of questionable AI branding? HP. The company is introducing “Print AI,” what it calls the “industry’s first intelligent print experience for home, office, and large format printing.”

What does that mean? It’s essentially a new beta software driver package for some HP printers. According to the press release, it can deliver “Perfect Output” — capital P capital O — a branded tool that reformats the contents of a page in order to more ideally fit it onto physical paper.

Despite my skeptical tone, this is actually a pretty cool idea. “Perfect Output can detect unwanted content like ads and web text, printing only the desired text and images, saving time, paper, and ink.” That’s neat! If the web page you’re printing doesn’t offer a built-in print format, the software will make one for you. It’ll also serve to better organize printed spreadsheets and images, too.

HP

But I don’t see anything in this software that’s actually AI — or even machine learning, for that matter. This is applying the same tech (functionally, if not necessarily the same code) as the “reader mode” formatting we’ve seen in browsers for about a decade now. Take the text and images of a page, strip out everything else that’s unnecessary, and present it as efficiently as possible.

It’s not rocket science, and it isn’t AI either, even by our modern and extremely loose definition. Corporate customers can get some of the same functionality when scanning documents with “HP Scan Enhanced,” which, again, sounds like some actually interesting functionality that doesn’t need AI to work.

The press release does mention that support and formatting tasks can be accomplished with “simple conversational prompts,” which at least might be leveraging some of the large language models that have become synonymous with AI as consumers understand it. But based on the description, it’s more about selling you something than helping you. “Customers can choose to print or explore a curated list of partners that offer unique photo printing capabilities, gift certificates to be printed on the card, and so much more.” Whoopee.

The Perfect Output tool should be available in beta versions of the drivers for all current HP printers, though I can’t find it on HP’s support site right now. Alternatively, you can just use plug and play on Windows and deal with your printer in its basic, not-quite-as-infuriating state, just as the good Lord intended.