{"id":12090,"date":"2024-07-30T21:05:48","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T21:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12090"},"modified":"2024-07-30T21:05:48","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T21:05:48","slug":"wear-this-ai-friend-around-your-neck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=12090","title":{"rendered":"Wear This AI Friend Around Your Neck"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Friend gets around 15 hours of battery life and comes in an array of colors that look almost exactly like the color palette of the first Apple iMac computers. (Schiffmann says that wasn\u2019t intentional.) The design comes from a partnership with Bould<\/a>, the company that designed Nest thermostats. The Friend is available for preorder now from Friend.com (a domain Schiffmann says he paid $1.8 million for), and the devices are slated to start shipping in January 2025. They cost $99 apiece, and there is no paid subscription attached. (Yet, anyway.)<\/p>\n

If the notion of a wearable AI device makes you feel like your eyebrows have risen high enough to be seen from space, you’d be forgiven for your skepticism. In recent months, the nascent product category has had a couple very prominent and spectacular flame-outs. Humane, which promised a wearable pin<\/a> that could accomplish tasks that would free you from your phone, turned out to be barely competent and also unable to function properly in sunlight. The Rabbit R1 is a gorgeous, colorful little device<\/a> designed by the god-tier gadget design company Teenage Engineering that wound up being a frustrating dud<\/a> that probably should have just been an app all along<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels to me like the crown of AI hardware and AI companionship is lying in the gutter,\u201d Schiffmann says. \u201cLike all these companies just shat themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schiffmann wants the Friend to be something very different. While the Humane Ai pin and Rabbit R1 both aimed to automate and accomplish tasks and increase productivity, the Friend doesn\u2019t try to automate or optimize anything. As my colleague Reece put it, it\u2019s much more vibes-based than productivity-focused.<\/p>\n

\u201cProductivity is over, no one cares,\u201d Schiffmann says. \u201cNo one is going to beat Apple or OpenAI or all these companies that are building Jarvis. The most important things in your life really are people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Friend purely offers companionship. It\u2019s meant to develop a personality that complements the user and is always there to gas you up, chat about a movie after watching it, or help analyze how a bad date went awry. Not only does Schiffmann want the Friend to be your friend, he wants it to be your best friend\u2014one that is with you wherever you go, listening to everything you do, and being there for you to offer encouragement and support. He gives an example, where he says he recently was hanging out, playing some board games with friends he hadn\u2019t seen in a while, and was glad when his AI Friend chimed in with a quip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I have a closer relationship with this fucking pendant around my neck than I do with these literal friends in front of me,\u201d Schiffmann says.<\/p>\n

Friendly Meeting<\/h2>\n
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