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New 'Friend' Necklace Offers AI Companionship
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Here is the pre-AI version of 'Friend', surprisingly this seems less creepy.
redheeler
macrumors G3
Has been for a while, glad you finally figured it out. 😊
Does it bother anyone how easy this thing makes it to constantly record everything that is going on around someone?
BlairMALL
macrumors regular
Thank you for this! Made my day! Now if Wilma Deering shows up at my house, I'll totally rethink my position on AI.
Anonymous Freak
macrumors 603
This company spent most of its seed funding on…...
Their domain name.
www.404media.co
Their domain name.
AI ‘Friend’ Company Spent $1.8 Million and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
AI companion Friend appears to have spent most of its funds on buying friend.com.
www.404media.co
jz0309
macrumors P6
Another “AI wearable”, launching in 6 months, lets revisit in 9 months…
pthomsen
macrumors newbie
This seems like a scam to me. There is no product yet, but they spent $1.8MM on the friend.com domain, according to their CEO, on Twitter...
Also, this is a product for lonely people, so they can talk to an 'AI'? So very very cringe.
Also, this is a product for lonely people, so they can talk to an 'AI'? So very very cringe.
pthomsen
macrumors newbie
Doing the quick math, they got $1.9MM in Seed funding, and an additional $2.5MM on a $50MM valuation.This company spent most of its seed funding on…...
Their domain name.
AI ‘Friend’ Company Spent $1.8 Million and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
AI companion Friend appears to have spent most of its funds on buying friend.com.
That is $4.4MM, and they spent ~41% of that money to purchase the friend.com domain name.
Almost half of their money is thrown away. Burned up. Shredded.
I think I'm going to wait to give them my $99, until there is a real product to buy. Probably not even then.
Mrkevinfinnerty
macrumors 68040
klasma
macrumors G4
It's not a scam, it's the founder (and his VCs) being deluded by current AI capabilities, and thinking that a rough idea already makes a working product.
klasma
macrumors G4
Looks fine to me. You're low on battery though.
waterskier2007
macrumors 68000
Hate to break it to you, but yeah it’s Llama
Source: https://www.geekwire.com/2024/covid...-a-wearable-always-listening-99-ai-companion/
Wonder how this works in states with two party consent laws.
brandoman
macrumors regular
maxoakland
macrumors 68000
"It's dank and I could eat one every day" says nobody in real life ever.
litmag01
macrumors 6502
This is the funniest thing I have read this week. Thank you MR!
coffeemilktea
macrumors 68000
If it's anything like most LLMs, I imagine its dialogue would get very repetitive after a while 😅 It's an interesting idea but the novelty would wear off after a few weeks..
SFjohn
macrumors 68030
This is connected to Meta? Never will I go anywhere near it, or anywhere near someone wearing one! So gross… 💩
Darmok N Jalad
macrumors 603
SeaFox
macrumors 68030
No one would spend $99 on an app, though. Same reason Rabbit R1 was $200 despite it being proven you could run the software on a bog-standard Android phone. It's much easier to get someone to spend $200 on $50 in hardware with a special app than just sell the app by itself.
What worries me is the number of people who find this okay.