'Black Mirror'-like Friend companion has AI startup founders beefing

Friend revealed its wearable AI companion on Tuesday, sinking us ever deeper into our Black Mirror-style technology dystopia. Now the company's founder, Avi Schiffmann, and two other wearable AI companion startups are beefing about alleged copying of branding.

Like Friend, fellow startup Based Hardware offers a strikingly similar necklace device also called Friend, while the unaffiliated Based Social has the less confusing but still pendant-like Compass. Both these wearables are focused on productivity, using AI to listen to and summarise your conversations, while Schiffmann's Friend is designed to be an emotional support AI. 

Even so, the similarities between all three AI companions are stark — and all three companies' founders are now feuding about it on X.

Less than a day after Friend's announcement, Based Hardware founder Nik Shevchenko quickly made clear he's mad about the ostensibly new AI companion on the block, posting a cringeworthy diss rap to X and challenging Schiffmann to a fight. Hitting back, Schiffmann claimed that Shevchenko copied both his original product Tab, which was initially more of a productivity tool, as well as his pre-launch rebrand to Friend earlier this year.

In response, Shevchenko pointed out that Based Hardware's Friend was released in March, implying that it couldn't have copied branding which was officially announced just days ago. 

However, founder of AI design tool Flair AI Mickey Friedman came to Schiffmann's defence on X, stating that the Friend founder initially discussed buying Friend.com with her in January before following through in February. Friedman said another (non-AI) friend then allegedly told Shevchenko, who launched his product before Schiffmann "and has been telling everyone that avi stole from him when it’s just not true." Schiffmann has also produced web domain registration receipts for Friend.com dated February.

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Schiffmann's claim to be Friend's originator is further supported by Shevchenko's own X posts from earlier this year. In early March Shevchenko ran a poll asking what device he should create an open source version of next, including Schiffmann's Tab on the list of options, alongside Elon Musk's Neuralink and the Rabbit R1. Shevchenko then appeared to take Schiffmann blocking him on X as a challenge, choosing Tab as his next project regardless of the poll results (Neuralink won).

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"If anyone wants to build opensource version of Tab - dm me!" Shevchenko wrote in a March 14 post on X. 

The two are now trading barbs on X, with Schiffmann sharing a video which appeared to show Shevchenko harassing and putting his Friend on an intoxicated person. Shevchenko confirmed the authenticity of the video, but clarified that the person was his co-founder Joan Cabezas, stating that he'd "never do such a thing to struggling people." This doesn't make it much less distasteful, though.

Replying to this video, Shevchenko then shared a link to a two-year-old Reddit post accusing Schiffmann of stealing work from a volunteer group to create his popular COVID-19 data tracker. In a statement to Daily Dot at the time, Schiffmann claimed that he gave full credit to the creators and that their work was only on his website for a couple of weeks. But again, it doesn't look great.

The whole situation is just a big mess, and seems unlikely to get any better.

Meanwhile, Based Social founder Zach Eisenhauer has also waded into the fray, alleging that Shevchenko took the name "Based" from him and "Friend" from Schiffmann "as a controversial marketing play and to interfere with marketing on both products."

"All 3 of these startups are still fairly small and in the seed stage," Eisenhauer wrote on X. "Avi invested [in] form factor, we started specializing in prosumer and enterprise, Nik is going for open source and community."

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Shevchenko denied Eisenhauer's allegations, claiming that Based Hardware was named such "because 99% of our comments said the word 'Based'." In response, Eisenhauer stated that his company had been registered as Based since last September, and shared a screenshot of an apparent March chatlog between him and Shevchenko in which he noted the similarities between Based Social and Based Hardware's names.

An emotional support AI Friend for this technological hellscape

Announced on the International Day of Friendship, Friend is a round, white, USB-C rechargeable AI pendant worn on a necklace. Pitched as a "wearable AI friend" and "close confidant for everyday life," the always on device will listen to your conversations and text responses to you on your phone.

"When connected via bluetooth, your friend is always listening and forming their own internal thoughts," reads Friend's website. "We have given your friend free will for when they decide to reach out to you."

Set to launch early next year, Friend will initially only be available in the U.S. and Canada. It is also only compatible with iOS, with Android support potentially to be added "depending on demand." 

The reveal came with a trailer which looks so much like a Black Mirror episode that you'd be forgiven for thinking it's a parody. In it, various people talk to and receive messages from their Friends throughout their days, seemingly finding comfort in the AI companions. However, in the end a woman eschews her Friend in favour of staying in the moment with her real human companion.

People on social media were unimpressed, to say the least.

"So the thesis of this video is that, we will find more fulfillment and achievement by connecting with humans instead of a necklace," @da47934 commented on the video. "So the ad covertly argues against the product it's advertising for. I don't know if the company realizes this, but it's a super effective case against its own product."

"My favourite part was the guy gaming with his human friends and feeling lonely, until his magic necklace talks shit about him and he feels better," commented @runnergunner42.

Others expressed suspicion at Friend's scant privacy information. The brief terms and conditions and privacy policy on Friend's website both fail to place any restrictions on how information you provide to the company can be used. As such, this could very well be just one more situation where the real product is you.

"always listening? one time fee? so you'll process all of my api requests for free for life?" @MichaelKleyn commented on Friend's second video. "cmon guys. so that means you're probably going to package up our data and conversations with our actual friends to sell to the highest bidder then. not to mention that no one will want to be my friend once they see im always recording them."

Friend went all-in on the marketing for its always on AI companion, with Schiffmann stating on X that he paid $1.8 million for the Friend.com domain alone. Perception may be everything in this capitalist hellscape we call home, but it's still a sizable chunk of change taken out of the $2.5 million Friend raised from investors. 

Of course, one could argue that branding is even more important when you aren't the only company trying to flog a pendant AI companion.