The New Friend AI Pendant Can Now Talk Back to You
The New Friend AI Pendant Can Now Talk Back to You
全新 Friend AI 吊坠现在可以与你对话了
Friend CEO Avi Schiffmann welcomes me into his palace—what he calls his large apartment in San Francisco. Friend 公司首席执行官 Avi Schiffmann 将我迎入他的“宫殿”——他这样称呼自己在旧金山的一间大公寓。
He sits on the couch in his living room, clad in an orange shirt emblazoned with a cartoon version of the motorcycle driven by Italian racer Valentino Rossi. He props his feet up on the side table and leans back, a round, softly glowing circular Friend pendant dangling from a yellow cord around his neck. 他坐在客厅的沙发上，穿着一件橙色衬衫，上面印着意大利赛车手瓦伦蒂诺·罗西（Valentino Rossi）所骑摩托车的卡通图案。他把脚搁在边桌上，向后靠去，脖子上挂着一条黄色绳子，系着一个圆形、散发着柔和光芒的 Friend 吊坠。
This is the second iteration of the Friend necklace, the controversial AI companion device that just about everyone (me including) seems to hate. The company announced the device on Thursday through its new X handle. 这是 Friend 项圈的第二代产品，这款备受争议的 AI 伴侣设备几乎被所有人（包括我在内）所厌恶。该公司周四通过其新的 X 账号发布了这款设备。
The first version of Friend was an always-listening AI wearable that responded via text message. The big update here is a speaker on the back that lets the device voice its responses aloud. That has changed the shape of the pendant, as the underside with the speaker is bulkier than before. Its AI chops have also been upgraded, now running OpenAI’s latest models. 第一代 Friend 是一款始终处于监听状态的 AI 可穿戴设备，通过短信进行回复。此次最大的更新在于背面增加了一个扬声器，使设备能够大声说出回复内容。这也改变了吊坠的形状，因为带有扬声器的底部比以前更厚重了。其 AI 能力也得到了升级，现在运行的是 OpenAI 的最新模型。
Like the first go, Friend aims to be a digital companion users can talk to and hold long conversations with. Unlike the original, each new pendant comes with a random voice and personality already established. The user cannot change the voice or name, so you’re locked in with that Friend. (Your mileage may vary on how friendly the thing actually is to you.) 与第一代一样，Friend 旨在成为用户可以交谈并进行长对话的数字伴侣。与原版不同的是，每个新吊坠都预设了随机的语音和性格。用户无法更改语音或名称，因此你只能接受那个特定的“朋友”。（至于它对你到底有多“友好”，那就要看个人体验了。）
The new pendant costs $249, a marked increase over the original’s $129 price. You can buy one now on Friend.com, a domain Schiffmann paid $1.8 million for. There is also an optional $10 monthly subscription that lets the AI remember the conversations you’ve had for longer than 30 days. The colorful cord around Schiffmann’s neck is part of an accessories collection he says will be coming later this year. 新款吊坠售价 249 美元，较原版 129 美元的价格大幅上涨。你现在可以在 Friend.com 上购买，Schiffmann 为这个域名支付了 180 万美元。此外还有一个每月 10 美元的可选订阅服务，可以让 AI 记住你超过 30 天的对话内容。Schiffmann 脖子上那条色彩鲜艳的绳子是他所说的将于今年晚些时候推出的配饰系列的一部分。
Schiffmann first garnered headlines in 2020 as a 17-year-old who built a website to track Covid-19 cases during the pandemic. Now 24, he’s far more well known—and outright notorious—for leading a company that makes a device many have called dystopian or like something out of a Black Mirror episode. Schiffmann 在 2020 年首次登上头条，当时 17 岁的他建立了一个网站来追踪疫情期间的 Covid-19 病例。如今 24 岁的他，因领导一家制造出被许多人称为“反乌托邦”或“像《黑镜》剧集里产物”的设备的公司，而变得更加出名，甚至可以说是声名狼藉。
“I’ve grown up a lot,” Schiffmann tells me just about every time I see him. “我成熟了很多，”我每次见到 Schiffmann 时，他几乎都会这样对我说。
Behind Schiffmann’s couch is a gigantic framed photograph of a Paris subway station with ads for the Friend pendant splayed across the walls. The ads, placed by Schiffmann’s company across New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago in 2025—and Paris in early 2026—sparked vigorous pushback and controversy over AI usage. People graffitied them in protest and griped that they devalued humanity, generating a litany of poignant headlines about the ads. The marketing got much more attention than the actual product ever did. 在 Schiffmann 的沙发后面，是一张巨大的巴黎地铁站装裱照片，墙上贴满了 Friend 吊坠的广告。这些广告由 Schiffmann 的公司于 2025 年在纽约、洛杉矶和芝加哥，以及 2026 年初在巴黎投放，引发了关于 AI 使用的强烈抵制和争议。人们在广告上涂鸦以示抗议，抱怨它们贬低了人性，并引发了一连串关于这些广告的尖锐报道。营销活动获得的关注度远超产品本身。
“Something like Friend is very dystopian in people’s minds and very futuristic,” Schiffmann says. “But we’re presenting it in the most analog way possible.” “像 Friend 这样的东西在人们心目中非常反乌托邦，也非常具有未来感，”Schiffmann 说，“但我们正以最模拟（非数字）的方式呈现它。”
That analog component is important to Schiffmann. He says he doesn’t have an internet connection in his home. He listens to music on a record player. He’s shooting a documentary about himself on Kodak Ektachrome. He argues that the controversial ad campaign was also analog, using print media to encourage human interaction. 这种“模拟”元素对 Schiffmann 来说很重要。他说他家里没有互联网连接。他用唱片机听音乐。他正在用柯达 Ektachrome 胶片拍摄一部关于自己的纪录片。他认为那场充满争议的广告活动也是“模拟”的，利用印刷媒体来鼓励人与人之间的互动。
After the ad campaign peaked, Schiffmann released a series of four user videos highlighting Friend customers. The videos are profoundly weird, often borderline bleak looks at people who suffer from depression or sheer loneliness. He says the move was deliberate to show the real people using his devices. 在广告活动达到顶峰后，Schiffmann 发布了一系列四段展示 Friend 用户的视频。这些视频非常怪异，往往以近乎凄凉的视角展现那些患有抑郁症或极度孤独的人。他说此举是有意为之，旨在展示使用他设备的真实人群。
“That’s life, isn’t it?” Schiffmann says. “I’m so much more intrigued to see how it’s affecting the people in those random Appalachian towns or whatever than it is [creating] slight productivity gains for finance people in New York. I don’t really give a fuck.” “这就是生活，不是吗？”Schiffmann 说，“比起为纽约的金融人士带来微小的生产力提升，我更感兴趣的是它如何影响那些阿巴拉契亚山脉小镇或其他地方的人们。我根本不在乎（那些金融人士怎么想）。”
Schiffmann says all of the consternation around Friend—and the resulting media sensations—has been deliberate. He seems to like making people mad, or at least feel something, leading some to ask whether this is all just an elaborate Warhol-esque art display. I ask Schiffmann if this has all just been an elaborate bit, more than an actual product endeavor. Schiffmann 表示，围绕 Friend 的所有惊恐——以及随之而来的媒体轰动——都是蓄意为之的。他似乎喜欢让人们生气，或者至少让他们产生某种感觉，这导致一些人质疑这是否只是一场精心策划的沃霍尔式艺术展览。我问 Schiffmann，这一切是否只是一场精心设计的表演，而非真正的产品开发。
“Reality is so over; everything is ironic now,” Schiffmann says. “Nothing is sacred anymore, and so Friend is both real but also, like, ridiculous. Friend, he acknowledges while wandering around a house where nearly all the art on the walls consists of large paintings he has made himself, is an inherently egomaniacal ambition. “现实已经结束了；现在一切都是讽刺，”Schiffmann 说，“没有什么东西是神圣的了，所以 Friend 既是真实的，同时也是荒谬的。”他在房子里走动时承认，墙上几乎所有的艺术品都是他自己画的大型画作，Friend 本质上是一种自我膨胀的野心。
“The whole thing is supposed to be me, in a way, and how I feel,” Schiffmann says. “And it’s encapsulated into a product.” “从某种程度上说，整个产品就是我，以及我的感受，”Schiffmann 说，“它被封装成了一个产品。”
Still, Friend is very much a product Schiffmann is trying to sell. He says he sold his first run of 5,000 pendants. Now he wants to grow, and aims to sell 50,000 of the second version. (You probably won’t be able to buy one in the European Union, as Schiffmann says he will likely pull the product from the EU because meeting the data privacy rules set by the General Data Protection Regulation makes it too expensive to sell there.) 尽管如此，Friend 仍然是 Schiffmann 试图销售的产品。他说他卖出了第一批 5000 个吊坠。现在他想要扩大规模，目标是卖出 5 万个第二代产品。（你可能无法在欧盟购买，因为 Schiffmann 表示他可能会将该产品撤出欧盟市场，因为满足《通用数据保护条例》（GDPR）设定的数据隐私规则使得在那里销售的成本太高。）
To hit that goal, Schiffmann’s going to have to convince lots more people to bring this often snarky, funhouse-mirror-style reflection of his character into their lives. He says he understands that people have the impression that Friend users are odd, but he hopes that will change and the product will become more appealing to “normal people.” 为了实现这一目标，Schiffmann 必须说服更多人将这个充满讽刺意味、如同哈哈镜般映射他性格的设备带入他们的生活。他说他理解人们认为 Friend 用户很古怪，但他希望这种情况会改变，产品能对“普通人”更具吸引力。
In the meantime, his media campaign for the product again focuses on people using the device by themselves or occasionally with another person—asking it whether they’ll ever get married or if their creative works are any good. The videos are vivid, with retro-looking color grading, but there’s always some quiet desperation that the Friend pendant. 与此同时，他为该产品开展的媒体宣传活动再次聚焦于人们独自使用该设备，或偶尔与他人一起使用——询问它是否会结婚，或者他们的创意作品是否出色。这些视频画面生动，带有复古的调色风格，但其中总透着一种 Friend 吊坠所带来的静谧的绝望感。