Friend is already making enemies. The weird, AI-fueled cure-all-for-loneliness hardware that debuted earlier this week has been around less than three days and already it’s being accused of being a rip-off of another product.
Friend is a $99 necklace that records everything you do and then uses AI to generate conversational texts about your activities, which are then sent to your phone. It was launched by Avi Schiffmann, a young developer who has gained some renown for his unconventional projects. Schiffmann announced the launch of Friend on Tuesday, publishing a highly produced advertisement to X to showcase the virtual companion’s capabilities.
On Thursday, a developer named Nik Schevchenko posted a “diss track” online, in which he claimed that Schiffmann had ripped off his product, which is also an AI necklace called “Friend.” The video, posted to X, is a rap in which Schevchenko addresses Schiffman and rhymes: “I’m the founder, hardware in hand/you’re just a shadow, can’t understand.”
Congrats @AviSchiffmann for launching Friend pic.twitter.com/3Vg2ts0XdS
— Nik Shevchenko (@kodjima33) July 31, 2024
Later, Schevchenko also posted a picture of himself shirtless and challenged Schevchenko to a duel: “IM OFFICIALLY INVITING @AviSchiffmann TO FIGHT WITH ME DO YOU TAKE THE OFFER?”
On Schevchenko’s blog, a post, dated June 24th, 2024, says: “I’m excited to announce the launch of my new product: FRIEND. It’s a necklace that transcribes your conversations, gives you summaries and proactive insights.” There are also a number of old YouTube reviews of “Friend AI” that display the product he’s talking about, one of which links to another website, where the developer can be seen explaining the device, which has a similar form factor and functionality to the one Schiffmann launched earlier this week.
When asked about Friend by Gizmodo earlier this week, Schiffmann claimed his device was more of a novelty, describing it as “just an LLM tamagotchi.” The notable feature of Schiffman’s device is that it texts you conversational messages based on what you’re doing, making it more geared towards virtual companionship. Schevchenko’s device, meanwhile, seems to have a heavier emphasis on organizational and productivity benefits.
When reached for comment about Schevchenko’s claims, Schiffmann said that Gizmodo’s coverage was “completely incorrect.” “I started work on Tab [the previous name of Friend] in May of last year, and had a viral demo in October,” Schiffman said, providing a video of the demo. “This was the first ever live demo of an always on ai wearable,” he added. “Later on, someone copied it with a simpler OSS version called Adeus,” Schiffmann said, providing a tweet, dated February 2nd, that showed developer Adam Cohen Hillel referencing Schiffmann’s “Tab,” as a product akin to his own, Adeus. He then provided another tweet bearing a screenshot, dated January 25th, 2024, that appears to show a conversation between Schiffmann and a friend, Mickey Friedman, with the two of them discussing the name “Friend” for the product. Schiffmann also noted that he had bought the domain friend.com in February of this year.
Gizmodo spoke with Schevchenko on the phone and he disputed Schiffmann’s interpretation of events. Schevchenko claimed that Schiffmann wasn’t the first person to come up with the idea of a wearable AI pendant, and that he and Hillel had previously discussed such a device. Gizmodo reached out to Hillel to better understand his role in the dispute but couldn’t get ahold of him.
UPDATE: A previous version of this story said there “appeared to be plenty of evidence” that Schevchenko was telling the truth. We’ve taken out this section of text to more accurately reflect the nature of the dispute.
