"Last month, AI startup Friend launched an eyebrow-raising advertising campaign in the New York City subway, which drew a striking amount of hatred. The largely white billboards left a convenient amount of room for passersby to air their feelings about the privacy-infringing tech. As such, it didn't take long for handwritten scribbles to cover the ads. "Befriend something alive," one pen-wielding tagger wrote. "AI wouldn't care if you lived or died," another vandal raged."
"The company recently launched its controversial AI gadget, which is designed to constantly listen to you via a microphone and send snarky AI texts to your smartphone. Now, Friend's 22-year-old CEO Avi Schiffmann isn't just doing a photoshoot in front of the defaced ads for photos featured in The Atlantic - he's relishing the attention his company has been getting as of late. Schiffmann told the magazine that the backlash was part of Friend's plan."
Friend launched an advertising campaign in the New York City subway that drew handwritten protests and hostile graffiti on largely white billboards. Passersby wrote messages accusing AI of indifference, promoting suicide, and replacing human connection. Friend released a wearable AI gadget that constantly listens via a microphone and sends snarky texts to users' smartphones. CEO Avi Schiffmann, age 22, posed with the defaced ads and characterized the backlash as deliberate provocation, saying the image itself was the campaign. Schiffmann denied that the company staged the graffiti despite identical phrases appearing on multiple posters. The campaign echoes earlier controversies about AI substituting for human relationships.
Read at Futurism
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