AI “Friends” are a Joke at Our Expense |
A doctor examining the dials inside a human machine. Pen and ink drawing by Roberts, c. 1929 – CC BY 4.0
This fall, Avi Schiffman, founder of the AI startup Friend.com, boasted on X about his company’s new advertising blitz, claiming it was the “Largest NYC subway campaign ever.”
Since then, the large white billboards lining New York City’s train stations have not only sparked intense conversation, but also vandalism. An online “museum” is documenting graffiti by an enraged public that lambasts the Artificial Intelligence-driven product.
Messages include “AI is burning the planet down around you,” and, “AI wouldn’t care if you lived or died.”
Schiffman’s splashy ads are touting a product aimed at tackling the epidemic of human loneliness. Users pay $129 to wear a plastic disc with recording technology around their neck that captures all their conversations and responds via text in the form of a virtual “friend.”
According to the ads, the product offers “someone who listens, responds, and supports you.”........