Friend AI Wearable: Because Your Imaginary Friends Needed an Upgrade

The device is priced at $99 with no subscription fee and will start shipping in Q1 of 2025, initially available only in the United States and Canada.

Intimate Knowledge Clashes with Privacy

The most interesting and potentially divisive feature of the Friend AI Wearable is the “always listening” one. This allows the device to get to know the user better, which can lead to more meaningful conversations. For example if the user says they are having a bad day, the device can give them advice based on the day’s events. What's more, future plans are to install a camera into it too, so device can also 'see' and gather even mor einformation about its user.

But this feature raises big privacy concerns. The company says no audio or transcripts are stored past the device’s context window and all data is end to end encrypted. But the idea of a device listening to private conversations all the time can be very uncomfortable for many. The company’s decision to tie the device’s “memories” to the physical hardware with no recovery plan if the device is lost or damaged makes the device feel like a real companion but also means if the device is lost or damaged you’ll lose all the personalized interactions and data, and your so called 'friend', having to start from scratch all over again.

This will be the key to how the device is received by the public. If the company can balance privacy with companionability the Friend AI Wearable could change the way we interact with AI devices. But if privacy is a major issue it will hold the device back.

On-demand Companionship

I guess we can see a trend by now where we're trying to make a product out of human interaction of all kinds now. Be it a romantic 'ai girlfriend' relationship or - friendship. I'm not against this at all, I think there can be a time and place for this technology as a temporary solution.

But of course it will later on show its dark side as well. Some people will become addicted to this and even less adapted to the real world. Because real friends are not 'on demand', maybe you can call one when you need a friend, but you certainly can't just expect him or her to just be quiet and wait till you're in the mood to talk again, or let you yap all day non stop, lending an ear. Real relationships are much more complicated, and while it may be tempting to simulate a relationship with somethins, that is a perfect listener, supporting, understanding, always in the mood to chat but never too intrusive, it is worth remembering that you are indeed talking to an imaginary friend, an algorythm, a program. Real world isn't a fairy tale and while books, games, movies are there to help us escape the harshness and dullness of it, when people get too immersed in those fictional realms, it tends to only make real life worse, just a bit later.

Last modified 04 August 2024 at 08:22