The name Avi Schiffmann probably doesn’t ring a bell for you. It didn’t ring a bell for me either, but in 2020, at the age of 17, he became famous for creating the first website where it was possible to track COVID-19 cases around the world.
That earned him a Webby Award, and two years later he launched a similar project that helped Ukrainian refugees to find people in neighboring countries willing to host and help them.
After dropping out of Harvard University, Schiffman, now 21, has a very different project underway. One he has called Friend. As indicated en Wiredspent $1.8 million to buy the domain, and the ambition of the small device is clear: to become the first AI wearable to succeed in the market.
It’s not going to be easy. The Humane AI Pin has ended up being a spectacular failure, and the Rabbit R1 hasn’t fared much better. Perhaps these devices wanted to do too much and faced the problem of expectations vs reality. With Friend the approach is very different, as you can see in the promotional video:
Friend wants to be exactly what its name suggests. Your friend. Or rather, your best friend. The device is a pendant with two parts: the pendant itself, which ends in a kind of “case”, and the device itself, which looks almost like an Apple AirTag and has several microphones and an internal battery.
Friend only works (at least for now) with the iPhone, will cost $99, and will not (at least for now again) have an associated subscription. This is a striking decision, especially considering that its operation is based on the use of Anthropic’s Claude 3.5 chatbot: perhaps intensive use will end up requiring some kind of subscription to cover this computational cost.
Friend reminds us of the dystopia told in the movie ‘Her’. The wearable listens to everything at all times, and from there we can talk to it. We won’t hear the answers: Friend displays them in its iPhone application, and it’s not clear whether these messages will appear on the Apple Watch, for example, which probably makes sense to improve interaction.
Friend seems to borrow the idea from Replika, the platform that allows users to configure and use virtual avatars that keep them company (or flirt) and chat with them using AI.
The video shows some of the interaction scenarios proposed by its creator. In these situations, the device seems to be able to infer the type of response in a way that is somewhat scary.
In one, she makes fun of a young man who is losing at a video game. In another, an employee is taking a break, eating something and watching a series on her phone. Once again, Friend seems to understand what TV series it is and gives her opinion, which we assume is aligned with the user’s tastes. When she spills a little sauce right on her pendant, she apologizes and Friend replies with a “Yum” (“How delicious”) which is also disturbing. It’s a pendant. It has no sense of taste.
In the final scene of the video, the girl takes a friend for the first time to a place she’s never taken anyone before. “Well, except her,” she says, pointing to her pendant. “I must be doing something right,” the guy says. The two look at each other, a little awkwardly, he probably thinking he has to compete with some sort of AirTag.
The video gives a glimpse into how Friend might interact, and while the Humane AI Pin and Rabbit R1 promised much more than they actually delivered, the idea of using Friend and having it become your best friend is a worrying one.
Above all, because of the implications this has on human relationships. Will we end up replacing people with bots? That is what this device seems to be looking for, one that listens at all hours and then responds to you with messages, and that makes you have someone, or rather, something, that talks to you and keeps you company. Even if it is artificial.
Just like Replika does, although in this case there is no active listening: you are the one who writes when you want to talk. It is an interaction that at least allows the AI not to be constantly aware of you. You can deactivate it.
It’s not clear whether you can do that with Friend, but even if you can, this is a new potential privacy threat. Schiffman says Friend doesn’t store audio recordings or transcripts, and that users can change or delete any memories stored on the device.
Friend will be available in the first quarter of 2025. That’s when we’ll be able to see if we’re dealing with an AI wearable that delivers on its promises… and if that’s enough to make it a success.
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