Friends worsens emotional dependence on AI
Your new best friend is in the body of a two-inch AI-powered device hung around your neck according to Avi Schiffmann, CEO of Friend. Like a real person, the pendant constantly listens to your daily interactions, conversations, and activities via built-in microphones, then it sends you personalized messages via an accompanied app to keep you company. However, as a part of Friend’s subway advertising campaign (the largest in New York City ever), 1,000 platform posters, 11,000 subway car ads, and 130 urban panels were defaced with graffiti overnight. In West Fourth Street, one graffitist wrote, “AI would not care if…