AI 'Friend' Necklace Could Eliminate The Need To Make Human Friends
A new AI startup called ‘Friend’ wants customers to purchase a wearable necklace that will allow the pendant to listen in on all their conversations and give the user real-time advice.
In an attempt to help those who are depressed or can't make friends in real life, Friend will allow a user (and definitely not a loser) the opportunity to wear the AI pendant that is supposed to act like a well, ‘friend,' as it communicates with the user via text messages.
Friend's founder and CEO Avi Schiffmann tweeted out a demonstration video of just how the pendant works and honestly, it's straight up frightening and makes a light-hearted episode of The Jetsons seem like an episode of Black Mirror - all for the lovely price of $99!
WHAT IS FRIEND?
In the video, a jogger just wraps up a run to which the Friend necklace responds "Good job," while a teenager playing video games and losing gets a random text from the Friend AI that "they are getting a thrashing," in the game. If that wasn't enough, a girl eating falafel gets a random message from her Friend that says "yum" as the two begin having a conversation about the food she's eating.
According to the Friend.com website - of which Schiffmann admitted paying $1.8 MILLION of a pre-seed $2.5 million investment for, the pendant works via Bluetooth and will communicate on its own. "When connected via bluetooth, your friend is always listening and forming their own internal thoughts. We have given your Friend free will for when they decide to reach out to you," the website reads.
"It’s very supportive, very validating, it’ll encourage your ideas," Schiffmann told The Verge during an interview. "It’s also super intelligent, it’s a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that."
And this my friends, is why we can't have nice things.
ARE WE THIS PATHETIC?
Rather than encourage people to go out and deal with uncomfortable situations, build up confidence and experience life in order to better one's self, we have products like this where we are just throwing our hands up in the air and willingly selling our individuality out to an algorithm. Here's the thing: The Algorithm STINKS. How many times have you been "recommended" something, and it's not what you want whatsoever?
Have we become so pathetic that we need the validation of a damn Tamagotchi-like necklace just randomly texting us? I already get enough texts - it's called group texts, and they're a pain in the a**. I don't need something from another ‘Friend' listening to anything and everything.
PRIVACY CONCERNS
The new Friend product has been getting ripped all across social media by the majority of respondents, many of whom either felt it was pointless, pathetic, or downright creepy. And they have a point. There will be plenty of people who don't want to have someone essentially have a microphone around their neck listening in to everything that someone is saying to that person. Hell, if anything, I think it could be a safety risk to the person wearing it - kids are already getting their iPhones stolen, now you want them to wear these Friend things? They are going to end up smashed to pieces across gymnasium floors.
Friend insists on its website that it doesn't collect or keep any of the audio recordings, but people are rightfully skeptical about that. "No audio or transcripts are stored past your friend’s context window. Your data is end-to-end encrypted. All memories can be deleted in one click within the friend app," the company explained, to which I say, "Sure, Jan."
Supporters of Friend argue that people's cell phones and apps are already listening to them anyway, which is why when you're talking about new sneakers and open Instagram, there's suddenly an ad for sneakers.
The difference is? We aren't knowingly going out of our way to consciously purchase being spied on.