If you live in Recent York, there’s almost no way you’ll miss out Friend AI pendant advertising subway fallout — whether you took photos of the most inspiring graffiti on tunnel ads, tried to avert your eyes from the near-constant presence of the device seen on all the subway car ads, or a friend texted you, “What is that?”
Although Friend was founded in 2023, sales of the $129 chatbot-enabled necklaces only began this summer, and an accompanying subway advertising campaign — which set the company back by more than 1 million dollarsalmost as much as the domain name – it debuted last month. The reviews have painted a picture of a device that can make people uncomfortable and often doesn’t work well for what it’s intended to do (i.e. listen to conversations and the day’s events and share jokes and opinions).
On the same weekend as the worldwide No Kings protests, there was also a Friend protest of sorts. Founding friend Avi Schiffmann sent an image of a taped-up flyer depicting the device and reading: “I hear you New Yorkers are mad at me. Let’s settle this once and for all before we go bankrupt.” The leaflet also included the time and place of the meeting, as well as a handwritten letter asking people to “bring markers with you.”
Based on photos and videos that probably were not generated by Sora, Sunday’s “event” actually took place. Schiffmann’s post shows people using Sharpies to deface the Friend banner, including one person writing: “Fuck AI”; a chalk drawing of a sad-faced Friend’s device; and people who appear to be playing basketball while holding a paper or cardboard cutout of the Friend device.
When I asked for comment on whether Friend organized the protest and whether its participants were organic, Schiffmann said Edge that he had no part in planning the event, adding that he flew to Recent York on red-eye to be there because people were sending him photos of the ads.
“During the event I was on a soapbox speaking to the audience and later that evening I found them in the park where we all sat in a large circle and talked. Everyone was very serious,” he wrote. “I thought it was a fruitful conversation and at the end we all shook hands. It was certainly a real protest.”
Schiffmann also posted photo in which he appeared to sign a handwritten document stating that he “will not sell friend.com” to Large Tech CEOs for “oversight purposes.”
Other video the thread showed people holding paper cut out from the device and tearing it into pieces while the crowd chanted, “Make real friends.” When the free destruction was over, people were shouting, “Get this shit out of here” and “Fuck AI.”
In tiny: Recent Yorkers do not tolerate overzealous subway advertising – especially if they say that artificial intelligence can replace a “friend”. And for the CEO of Friend’s, it’s still better than not paying attention at all.