Friend or Faux? Or Just Foe!

$Writer: \\\ V ///$
\\\ V ///
Oct 15
6 min read

Updated: Nov 7

Lots of action on this one. Friend the AI friend. I shot this at the Carroll street F train station on October 5, 2025. Later that week a slew of articles published by NYT (and more below) reporting how and why New Yorkers are vandalizing the ads. The Atlantic interviewed the founder to get his thoughts and reactions to this.

Unsurprisingly, the founder has tech god complexes. He believes using his device is the same as talking to god. For whatever reason tech god goes a hell of long way in the Valley. I mean, they get A LOT of mileage from it. Billions-of-dollars-unicorn-valuation mileage.

So for the record and to make it clear, I know for sure AI is only machines and code.

For reference I asked an AI, Claude (Sonnet 4.5) what it thought about the whole tech god phenom and it defined it as "techno-libertarianism" aka "techno-utopianism" stemming from "founder's syndrome", "disruption delusion" and "tech-execeptionalism".

My followup prompt: "what about when they say using their tech is same as talking to god".

Claude: "Ah, that's taking it to another level - that's often called "AI messianism" or "techno-messianism".

When founders or tech leaders specifically frame their AI or technology as god-like, or position themselves as prophets/priests mediating access to a higher intelligence, you're looking at:

"AI theology" or "technoreligion" - Literally treating AI/technology as divine or transcendent

"Singularity cultism" - Related to beliefs about AI reaching god-like superintelligence, often tied to Ray Kurzweil's ideas

"Prophet complex" - When founders position themselves as chosen intermediaries between humanity and some higher technological truth

This includes rhetoric like:

"We're building God" or "summoning the demon"
Positioning AI as an oracle or deity
Framing their work in explicitly religious or mystical terms
Claiming special communion with or understanding of AI that others lack

You see this in some AI company leaders who use religious language about their models, talk about "alignment" in near-spiritual terms, or suggest that interacting with their AI is akin to accessing divine wisdom.

It's a specific subset of tech hubris that blends the god complex with actual theological framing - they're not just saying they're important, they're saying their technology represents something transcendent or divine, and they're the high priests."

You see here, even AI can call bullshit.

Let's do a quick review of the actual thing. The device design is not exceptional. It's plastic and looks like it's maybe a step or two past 3D printed prototyping. The experience does not seem to be a spiritually other worldly experience either.

There are thousands of people and companies who produce millions, billions of plastic devices that light up. And some of them talk as well, so why does creating this device so ground breakingly godly? What are the true god merits here? That the bullshit is so good people will buy and worship me and my devices? Really, even the bullshit is nowhere near god level.

Why sell a friend and get right to selling god and make the device a shrine or a god-in-a-box with a subscription to god.com? Why would any person with any soul buy a friend? Isn't that the biggest contradiction which is the most common of sense anywhere in the human world and the most ironically logical: a friend is not a friend if you buy her/him/them/it.

Let's take it a little further and conflate friendship with business models and the oldest profession in the world. There are still dudes who buy companionship and meet a "friend" for lunch at a hotel on 6th ave and 58th whenever they're in town for business and their IRL friends back home pitty mock them because they can't hook up any other way. Sometimes the "friend" is actually a they, in which the companionship becomes truly trans-actional. Here's what's really going with these Johns: "I can't be with you in my normal life because my religious beliefs won't allow it. But, through this transaction we can keep this temporal relationship within the terms of this service.". A-men!

So to be never ever confused – selling "friends" isn't godly or makes one a god. And buying friends is shade and will not save you. If anything it makes you a sinner and you go straight to hell. So from a business model perspective, it seems like the founder actually has pimp dreams. (Vs. congregational).

Money in exchange for friendship is called a hustle. It's dishonest. It is also a tried and true test of friendship, and of good people. People who help others out of genuine friendliness and kindness never accept money for a good deed. In fact some may be insulted if the other insists on giving money in exchange.

Really good friends are friends who are able to share with each other anything and everything. Including their deepest thoughts and secrets.

I'll bet my life and all my closest friendships that this "friend" or so called god, is collecting and will sell out all your thoughts and secrets to the highest bidder anytime, anywhere.

NYT Friend article, subway graffiti on Friend AI posters.

See for yourself: Friend is divine teen sci-fi horror.

Friend has sold 1,000 devices. Which sucks. And they plan to sell in Walmart. Which also sucks. So I asked another almighty higher power AI (Meta's AI god) to render its potential future as an image.

Apparently there will be a big pimpin Friend Pro Max version 😘.