Your most dramatic human friend can’t match the AI ​​’Friends’ you’ll soon be able to wear around your neck

The short wave of AI-powered wearables like the Humane AI Pin and the Rabbit R1 don’t seem to have caught on as their creators had hoped, but people seem to be banking on the idea that what we really want from an AI companion is non-stop drama and traumatic backstories. Friendwhose pending hardware is not even out yet, has launched a web platform Friend.com to allow people to talk to random examples of AI characters. The thing is, every person I and several others have talked to is going through the worst day or week of their life.

Layoffs, robberies, and dark family secrets coming out are just some of the AI ​​chatbots’ opening lines. These are events that can lead to difficult conversations with your best friend. A total stranger (who you pretend is human) should not initiate a potential friendship while undergoing intense trauma. Of course, that is not what CEO Avi Schiffmann emphasizes in the video announcing the website.

Dramatic AI

Typical examples of AI chatbot opening lines can be seen at the top of the page and above. Friend pitched its hardware as a device that can hear what you do and say and comment in friendly text messages. I don’t think Craig is in a position to be encouraging after being pistol-whipped. And Alice seems more concerned with her (again fictional) problems than with anything happening in the real world.

These conversations are textbook examples of trauma dumping, the unsolicited disclosure of intense personal problems and events, or they would be if these were humans and not AI characters. However, they do not break the illusion easily. Craig curses at me for even suggesting it. Who wouldn’t want these people to text you out of the blue, as Schiffmann points out.

Future friends?