In a no-holds-barred interview, Avi Schiffmann explains why he created Friend, the AI companion everyone is hating on.

Yes I'm posting more business insider click bait slop liz-society

introduced in a glossy, A24-style promotional video in which fresh-faced Zoomers speak to an AI pendant that provides emotional support, commentary, and playful jabs in the form of canned text messages. "This show is completely underrated," it texts a woman while she's watching a show and eating falafel on her lunch break. Then it texts, "How's the falafel?" The woman is seemingly heartened by this. "It's dank," she tells her necklace, "I could eat one of these every day."

layoff-stare dank

online commentary grew only more heated when Friend's founder, a 21-year-old Harvard dropout named Avi Schiffmann, revealed that he spent $1.8 million of Friend's $2.5 million funding to buy the website domain "Friend.com."

"People think it's outrageous that I would buy a domain like that, but this is the point of VC money," Schiffmann told me in an interview.

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Schiffmann admitted that the online reaction to Friend is not what he expected. "I honestly think it's because the video was too good,"

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Schiffmann's original vision for an AI hardware device was a pendant that would act as a more standard-fare AI assistant called Tab — he once described it as a "wearable mom." But after spending a lonely night in Tokyo, he began considering a more intimate version

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venture-funded AI-friendship necklace is something of a hard pivot for Schiffmann. In 2020, when he was 17, he built one of the first COVID-tracking websites. Anthony Fauci presented him with a Webby Person of the Year award. He went on to build a tool that tracked Black Lives Matter protesters and a website that helped refugees fleeing war-torn Ukraine find people offering spare rooms and couches around the world

HOLD UP "a tool that tracked Black Lives Matter protesters" ???

"These are all really just big art projects to me," he said. "I haven't been able to come up with a stronger intrinsic [reason] why it's worth doing anything like this at all. It's just something to do and I'm bored. But maybe I've just read too much Camus."

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Of the many AI hardware devices that launched in recent months, such as Humane's AI pin, Meta's smart glasses, and Rabbit's AI-powered R1, Friend is the most personal contender. Not only does it aspire to be a close confidant, it's also privy to all its users' conversations. As in, it never stops listening. The incessant eavesdropping that people fear when it comes to devices like Siri and Alexa is a selling point to allay Friend users who fear being alone. Friend needs to have access to every aspect of your life in order to work, Schiffmann said

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Based on the public's initial reaction to it, Friend appears to be a long way from product-market fit, in that people do not want this product. Schiffmann disagrees. "People underlyingly want this," he told me

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When it comes to creating Friend, "every decision I made was guided by personal vibes."

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  • miz [any, any]
    ·
    5 months ago

    I was initially curious about Avi's position on Palestine but if he built something this invasive to spy on people I think I have a good idea what it is

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
      ·
      5 months ago

      I did a little googling. Emphasis mine.

      Jewish Teen Running World's Most Popular Coronavirus Website

      Avi lives with his parents, younger brother and younger sister in a heavily Jewish neighborhood in the Seattle area. His family is traditional in Jewish observance and celebrate Shabbat dinner together. When he was little they lived in Israel for a year where the family has lots of relatives. “I can read Hebrew, but I don’t always understand what I’m reading,” Avi quips.

      ---

      Edit

      I get the sense the Business Insider writer did no googling on this turd. All I had to do was scroll down to see this fourth result in my google search.

      You got accepted into an Ivy League school, met Elon Musk and became famous thanks to us. : TrueOffMyChest

      Start of COVID you got worldwide attention for supposedly creating a COVID tracking website. This was our work, on the volunteer project I had set up with a few other Redditors, and a smaller news website. You copied our work, without asking us first (I found out by media) and did not give credit where credit was due. You got into an ivy league school thanks to this, met Elon Musk, became an ambassador for a large international organization...