The AI-powered Friend pendant is now out in the world. If you live in the US or Canada, you can buy one for $129.
The smooth plastic disc is just under 2 inches in diameter; it looks and feels a little like a beefy Apple AirTag. Inside are some LEDs and a Bluetooth radio that connects you (through your iPhone) to a chatbot in the cloud that’s powered by Google’s Gemini 2.5 model. You can tap on the disc to ask your Friend questions as it dangles around your neck, and it responds to your voice prompts by sending you text messages through the companion app. You can reply to these messages with your voice or via text to keep the conversation going.
It also listens to whatever you’re doing as you move through the world, no tap required, and offers a running commentary on the interactions you have throughout your day. To perform that trick, the device has microphones that are always activated.
If the idea of a microphone-packed wearable that’s always listening to your conversations raises privacy concerns for you, just know that you’re not alone. If your experience is anything like ours, wearing the Friend will likely earn you the ire of everyone around you. Curiously, you might even end up being bullied by the chatbot itself.
You can conveniently ask the device around your neck a question.
You then must pull out a different device from your pocket with exactly the same functionality to get the answer thereby saving you 0 time.
This privilege costs over $100.
it’s so much more sinister than that and I never thought about any of this before checking this vid out, to be honest. The “they’ve reached the end of what they can Hoover up online and now they have to go into the real world to steal more data” part is uhhhhh concerning
As an added bonus, you get overt spyware to wear around your neck so it can listen to and log your every conversation.
why are techbros so obsessed with AI-wearables? first the Rabbit, then the Humane pin, now this? We already have phones that listen to us 24/7, why do they think anyone wants another thing to lug around?
“data is the new oil”
most people keep their phones in their pockets, which would ruin audio quality for 24/7 listening, and Apple and Android are able to restrict app permissions as well to prevent it.
VC money doesn’t care about whether normal people actually want a device like this. what they’re really after is “we’re collecting a bunch of user-specific data that no one else has, that we can sell to people who think it’ll help them do better ad targeting (among other things)”
Yeah that adds up. Everything is about naked, cynical capitalism now. I guess my millennial brain is stuck in the era where I thought the point of consumer electronics was to make cool devices that people wanted to buy.
This is the end, my friend
I blame Carl Icahn. Sure, he made a shitton of money, but only by restructuring the entire U.S. economy around quarterly returns – and seemingly quarterly layoffs.
it can make the people around you uneasy.
I don’t need one, I’ve got that covered, thanks.
Totally normal
In our meeting, he asked us not to unbox the devices in front of him because he is in love with someone and wants the first time he witnesses a Friend unboxing to be with her.
Sliced bread is cheaper and just as effective as being a useless part of your internet communication. Hell, just take her out for a nice meal.
One attendee who works at a Big Tech company, holding a bottle of wine he had finished throughout the night, joked they should kill me for wearing a listening device. (Not funny.) I yanked the pendant off and stuffed it in my purse.
Silicon Valley is a fucking cesspool.
I asked what the problem was, and it said, “Your microphone. Maybe your attitude. The possibilities are endless.” Now we were arguing. I asked what its capabilities were. It accused me of being dramatic and said things like, “I’m challenging your assumptions. That’s how we fix real problems.”
Lol, even snarking it’s full of slop.
If I wanted to READ ai “snark”, I would spend more time on facebook, or go back to reddit. How hard could it be to slap a battery and 4G/5G modem on a google home or alexa? Eiter of which would be easier to run on a phone or tablet, which also includes speakers.
How do these morons that can’t match the convenience of existing privacy nightmares, or even DIY stuff, continue to get VC funding?
Get VC funding… like this:
Schiffmann posits himself as older now, wiser, more experienced than he was when he first debuted the Friend necklace. (He is 22.) He has grown out his hair and cultivated a beard
A wise 22 year old with a beard… 😮💨
The VCs are clueless, they jump on a bunch of “feels good” and “disruptive young blood” stuff, hoping that maybe 1 in 10 will not fall and burn.
Oh, I’m fully aware. It just boggles the mind how the same tired outlook has endured for decades now.
Appearances, preconceptions, stereotypes… are shortcuts used to deal with complex issues. Since VCs don’t really care about 90% of the startups, they only need to weed out the worst ideas, in the quickest way possible.
Story time: When I was 20, I had some job interviews lined up, so a family friend helped me pick a decent looking suit and robe that weren’t too expensive. Got offered 3 different jobs in a single week 🤷
Well, don’t use it then.
Can’t really say that when it is an always listening device. Can’t really not use it if someone around you has one
Unfortunately we live in a world where people often have the right to do things that we personally disapprove of.
Then your original comment means nothing. Also, two-party consent is pretty common
It’s not universal. Where I live it’s one-party consent.
OK? Again the comment of “Don’t use it” is even more pointless if you live in a single party consent state.
But my comment about how people have the right to do things you personally disapprove of is even more pointful.
people have the right to do things you personally disapprove of
meanwhile, literally in the headline:
Worse, it can also make the people around you uneasy.
no one is saying you don’t have “the right” to wear this Spyware Pendant in your one-party consent state.
people are saying it’s creepy and you’re jumping in defending it with “well, technically, it’s not illegal, depending on state law”. you’re just completely missing the point entirely.
this is like, if someone wrote an article about how people are annoyed by someone microwaving fish in the office cafeteria, you chimed in with “well they can simply quit and find a different job where people don’t microwave fish at the office”.
No, that comment is pointless regardless. Of course people can do things I don’t like. That was never in question. That does not mean they are free from consequences or societal repercussions.
You also have the right to smear shit on your face, but don’t be surprised if no one wants to hang out with you.
Fortunately, you can punch them in the face to provide some badly needed attitude adjustment.
Uh huh
And what about those around you? What about the people in the streets, the people you interact with?
I don’t want this shit but now I have no choice, I WILL BE MONITORED.
The only way out is to be a fucking hermit in the forest, at this point
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