This iPhone AI “friend” looks like it came from Black Mirror

TechAIThis iPhone AI “friend” looks like it came from Black MirrorDo you want an AI friend?When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Do you want an AI friend?

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Friend)

Friend wearable AI companion

(Image credit: Friend)

Quick SummaryLaunching in early 2025, Friend is a wearable that hopes to be your AI companion: a ChatGPT that’s always listening to you and the world around you.

Launching in early 2025, Friend is a wearable that hopes to be your AI companion: a ChatGPT that’s always listening to you and the world around you.

Some of the best sci-fi isn’t really about the future. It’s about now, and it extrapolates today’s tech and trends to talk about how we live and where we’re heading. So it’s not really surprising to see the 2013 movieHer, in which Joaquin Phoenix falls for his digital assistant, become closer to reality every day.

Friend Reveal Trailer - YouTubeWatch On

Friend Reveal Trailer - YouTube

The fellowship of this ring

Let’s talk about the tech first. Friend connects to aniPhoneover Bluetooth and listens constantly. If you want to chat to your Friend you press a button; it sends its response as a message on youriPhone.

It can also respond to what’s going on around you. So as a device it isn’t more than a wireless phone mic (a version with a camera is also planned) for aChatGPT-style chatbot. But the pendant is just the vehicle.

The goal is to create an AI that you consider part of your friend group. Or if you’re feeling dystopian, that replaces it.

Creator Avi Schiffmann originally intended the wearable as a productivity tool, but reckons that that’s best left toAppleand OpenAI. Instead, Friend is supposed to be a portable pal: “a great brainstorming buddy. You can talk to it about relationships, things like that.”

Speaking to The Verge, Schiffmann says it’s not intended to replace real friends – but he doesn’t reject the idea that an AI might be one of the five people you spend most of your time with. As he describes it, it’s like a pen pal without the delays crossed with a Tamagotchi virtual pet. But what springs to mind most for me is Destiny’s Ghost, the robot sphere that follows you everywhere and tells you that wizards are coming from the moon.

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I’m rather cynical about AI. To me, it feels like it’s another tech bubble where wild claims raise big sums of money for products that don’t quite deliver: check out the reviews of theRabbit R1for a demonstration of how a good AI demo doesn’tnecessarilymean a good AI product. But my worry with this one isn’t that itwon’tlive up to its promises, but that it will.

Over on X (formerly Twitter) you can see ample evidence of people interacting with bots that they think are real people. That’s rarely a positive thing: the bots are largely sowing division, not bringing us together.

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