My Friend Has No Soul
The second iteration of the viral Friend AI necklace is louder and less interesting.
A reporter spoke with Julian Chokkattu, his editor, about the AI-powered chatbot pendant called Friend 2. He held up the device, which had named itself Sage, and it began speaking as if the reporter was conversing with it. After some playful banter, they agreed to stop using the device. The Friend 2, priced at $249, is an upgrade from the original version, which faced controversy over an ad campaign in New York City's subway.
The Friend 2 houses an AI chatbot that builds a memory map of your conversations as you use it. Avi Schiffmann, the creator of the Friend, plans to launch a new era for the device, turning it into a hive mind shared by all users. This change aims to give each user the same entity to converse with, eliminating the need for individual accounts. However, this may result in a lack of variation and personality in the chatbot interactions.
Written by urgent.news from Wired's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
