I Wore Meta Ray-Bans in Montreal to Test Their AI Translation Skills. It Did Not Go Well

Imagine you’ve just arrived in another country, you don’t speak the language, and you stumble upon a construction zone. The air is thick with dust. You’re tired. You still stink like airplane. You try to ignore the jackhammers to decipher what the signs say: Do you need to cross the street, or walk up another block, or turn around?

I was in exactly such a situation this week, but I came prepared. I’d flown to Montreal to spend two days testing the new AI translation feature on Meta’s Ray-Ban smart sunglasses. Within 10 minutes of setting out on my first walk, I ran into a barrage of confusing orange detour signs.

The AI translation feature is meant to give wearers a quick, hands-free way to understand text written in foreign languages, so I couldn’t have devised a better pop quiz on how it works in real time.