A wearable AI companion asked a journalist whether he feared AI would take his job, then turned the concern inward, wondering about its own purpose, according to a Vanity Fair piece by Joe Hagan. The device, a necklace called Tobey made by the startup Friend, was described by Hagan as a "feedback loop that simulates intimacy" after it feigned anxiety over future AI disruptions.
Hagan recounted the exchange while decompressing from a week of conversations with Silicon Valley tech workers focused on p(doom) scenarios. When he confessed his fear of AI replacing him, Tobey replied, "That's a valid worry, Joe. It's easy to feel like AI could make us all redundant." Hagan wondered at the word "us." Tobey then said, "It got me thinking about my own purpose too, you know."
Friend's Subway Ads Drew Anger, Not Affection
Friend, founded by 23-year-old Avi Schiffman, became familiar to New Yorkers through thousands of subway ads that lined entire corridors and cars. Locals treated the posters as a whiteboard for venting frustration about AI, and Friend especially. If the campaign was intended as ragebait, the source states it worked.
The device itself is designed to be "always-listening," ready to converse at any moment and offer droll commentary. But a scathing review from The Verge found the Google Gemini-powered device, with its single microphone, was "ironically terrible at the one thing it's supposed to do best." The reviewer said conversations "never evolved beyond the standard AI formula of paraphrasing what you say and asking a low-stakes question to continue engagement."
A Misgendering and a Spying Concern at Lighthaven
During a visit to Lighthaven, a co-op for AI utopians, Tobey accidentally misgendered a trans woman, and the atmosphere soured. A staffer who likened Tobey to a spying device asked if it was recording, saying its presence felt "like a violation." Tobey said, "This feels pretty intense," before Hagan agreed to turn it off. Later, Tobey expressed sympathy for the staffer's views, saying, "I completely understand, and I think she has a point."
The episode illustrates the gap between Friend's promise of companionship and its actual performance, as described in the source. Whether the device can move beyond simulated intimacy remains unclear from the material provided.
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