That was memorably illustrated when a marketing campaign launched last year by a company called Friend attracted widespread mockery and vandalism. Now Friend is back with a new and improved version of its AI pendant. The new Friend pendant costs $249, almost twice as expensive as the original. Friend is very much continuing to lean into that angle with its new AI pendant. These too have a pretty depressing dreamlike quality and don’t exactly inspire the feeling that AI is going to be a mental health boon for humanity.