--- title: "AI “Friend” Startup Overwhelmed With Hatred" description: "New Yorkers appear to have plenty of reasons to ridicule and criticize AI startup Friend's latest offering." date: "2025-10-04" modified: "2025-10-04" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/future-society/ai-friend-startup-overwhelmed-hatred" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Ethics" - "Future Society" --- # AI “Friend” Startup Overwhelmed With Hatred ![New Yorkers appear to have plenty of reasons to ridicule and criticize AI startup Friend's latest offering.]() *Friend* New York City subway ads for a new pendant by AI startup Friend were quickly [defaced by droves of angry residents](). The company's latest gizmo, a necklace designed to [constantly listen to you via a microphone]() and send snarky AI slop texts to your smartphone, has proven immensely controversial, leading to an outpouring of criticism. The more people learn about the $129 device, the more appalled they are. "Befriend something alive," reads one [graffiti tag](). "AI wouldn't care if you lived or died," another vandal [wrote](). "Nobody who has friends needs an AI companion to chat with while enhancing the capacity of the surveillance state to a degree that would make George Orwell drink a jar of room temperature mercury," NYC-based standup comedian Josh Gondelman wrote in a [tongue-in-cheek "pep talk" aimed at the device](). "And anyone without existing human friends arguably needs you even less." Even the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a dire warning about the device. "A reminder that anything recorded on a device like this AI 'friend' could be used against you — by hackers, private companies, or the government," the nonprofit wrote in a [social post](). Meanwhile, Friend's 22-year-old CEO, Avi Schiffmann, made the eyebrow-raising claim that he was intentionally inviting all of the hate by leaving enough blank space on the ads for all of the graffiti. "I know people in New York hate AI, and things like AI companionship and wearables, probably more than anywhere else in the country," he [told *Adweek*.]() "So I bought more ads than anyone has ever done with a lot of white space so that they would socially comment on the topic." In total, Friend spent over $1 million in New York City subway ads to become the butt of the joke. Apart from triggering a massive outpouring of anti-AI sentiment, Friend's hardware also happens to leave a lot to be desired. In a [scathing piece](), *The Verge*'s Victoria Song, who tested out the device, noted its extremely limited usefulness and its strong tendency to antagonize her. "Blorbo \[the name Song gave the device\] was irritating and somewhat impossible to interact with," Song wrote. "Probably because Blorbo only has one mic, and so it’s ironically terrible at the one thing it’s supposed to do best: listening." "It prompted me to tell it more about the products I was seeing and testing," she added. "But I couldn’t un-see the artifice. The conversation never evolved beyond the standard AI formula of paraphrasing what you say and asking a low-stakes question to continue engagement." *Wired* reporters Kylie Robison and Boone Ashworth also [found last month]() that the gadget was an "incredibly antisocial device to wear." "People were never excited to see it around my neck," Robison wrote. **More on Friend:** [*New Yorkers Are Defacing This AI Startup’s Million-Dollar Ad Campaign*]() ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()