{"id":181138,"date":"2025-10-06T03:29:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T03:29:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181138\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T03:29:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T03:29:16","slug":"dystopian-ai-necklace-lets-you-chat-with-ai-bestie-were-literally-living-in-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/181138\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Dystopian’ AI necklace lets you chat with ‘AI bestie’: \u2018We\u2019re literally living in 1984\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

An AI<\/a> startup has launched a wearable dubbed online as an ‘AI bestie’, sparking debate about how technology<\/a> is shaping human connection.<\/p>\n

The device, named Friend<\/a>, takes the form of a small, disc-shaped necklace, designed with a minimalist, techy aesthetic.<\/p>\n

Retailing at $129 (roughly \u00a395), it constantly monitors conversations, noting interactions and offering its own observations on daily life. <\/p>\n

Users can activate it with a tap, triggering responses through a companion app, which are then delivered as either voice messages or text.<\/p>\n

– YouTube www.youtube.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

Over in New York<\/a>, people are quite literally leaving their mark, scribbling messages on billboards appearing around the city\u2019s subway stations.<\/p>\n

In a conversation with Adweek<\/a>, the company\u2019s CEO, Avi Schiffmann, said the ad placement was intentional.<\/p>\n

“I know people in New York hate AI, and things like AI companionship and wearables, probably more than anywhere else in the country,” he shared. “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.”<\/p>\n

Over on Instagram, one compared the ‘Friend’ teaser to an episode of Black Mirror, as another quipped: “We\u2019re literally living in 1984 (the book, not the year, unfortunately).” <\/p>\n

A third asked: “Can we go back to using AI for identifying cancer cells or making dangerous jobs safer instead of this fresh hell?”<\/p>\n

“Friends don\u2019t let friends use friend AI,” another shared. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, someone simply called the wearable “so dystopian,” adding: “As others have pointed out, this isn\u2019t going to teach real friendship skills. <\/p>\n

“AI \u2018friendships\u2019 are all about the user’s needs and preferences, whereas real friendships are about two-way care and support. <\/p>\n

“This isn\u2019t going to help people; it\u2019s going to reinforce introspection and selfishness, which will stop people from making real friendships.”<\/p>\n

You should also read… <\/p>\n

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Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An AI startup has launched a wearable dubbed online as an ‘AI bestie’, sparking debate about how technology…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":181139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,6260,8416,80236,394,227,86,56,54,55,1148],"class_list":["post-181138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-friend","tag-friendship","tag-necklace","tag-new-york","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wearable"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}