Developer Says ‘Friend’ AI Amulet Ripped Off His Project, Releases Diss Track

A friend is already making enemies. The weird, AI-powered hardware for treating loneliness that debuted earlier this week has been around for less than three days and is already being accused of being ripped off by another product.

Friend is a $99 necklace that records everything you do and uses AI to create chat scripts about your activities, which are sent to your phone. It was founded by Avi Schiffmann, a young developer who has gained fame for his unusual projects. Schiffmann announced the launch of Friend on Tuesday, publishing a highly-produced ad on X to showcase the capabilities of the virtual companion.

On Thursday, a developer named Nik Schevchenko posted a “diss song” online, in which he said Schiffmann ripped off his product, which is an AI necklace called “Friend.” The video, posted on X, is a rap in which Schevchenko talks to Schiffman and rhymes: “I’m an inventor, hardware in hand/you’re just a shadow, you can’t understand.”

Congratulations @AviSchiffmann which presents Friend pic.twitter.com/3Vg2ts0XdS

— Nik Shevchenko (@kodjima33) July 31, 2024

Later, Schevchenko also posted a shirtless photo of himself and challenged Schevchenko to a match: “I OFFICIALLY INVITE @AviSchiffmann TO FIGHT ME WILL YOU TAKE THE OFFER?”

There seems to be a lot of evidence that Schevchenko is telling the truth. On Schevchenko’s blog, the post, dated June 24, 2024, says: “I am happy to announce the launch of my new product: FRIEND. A necklace that records your conversations, giving you summaries and actionable insights.” There are also a number of old YouTube reviews of “Friend AI” showing the product he is talking about, one of which links to another website, where an engineer can be seen describing the device, which has a similar appearance and functionality to the one Schiffmann presented earlier this week.

When asked about the friend by Gizmodo earlier this week, Schiffmann said his device was new, describing it as “just an LLM tamagotchi.” A notable feature of Schiffman’s device is that it writes you chat messages based on what you’re doing, making it a great fit for virtual friendships. The device of Schevchenko, meanwhile, seems to emphasize the benefits of organization and productivity.

Gizmodo has reached out to both Schiffmann and Schevchenko for comment and will update this story if either responds. When reached by 404 Media for comment, Schiffmann said, of Schevchenko: “I’m not related to Nik.” He added: “I will not continue to comment on Nik.”