I Don't Want AI Chatbot Friends
Resist the dystopian nightmare.
Maybe you’ve already heard.
In a recent interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on the current loneliness epidemic, asserting that the average American has fewer than three friends but has a demand for meaningfully more.
While I agree about the ties between the loneliness epidemic and a very real friendship recession, I do not agree with Zuck’s proposed solution, which is to create AI chatbot friends.
Nobody wants that.
At least, I do not.
I don’t want AI chatbot friends.
If AI wants to schedule my emails and set timers while I’m cooking and send me automated reminders that I’m meeting someone for coffee this afternoon, all the better. This just frees me to spend more time with real, live friends.
But I don’t want AI to be my friend.
Even setting aside concerns about data and privacy—not to mention AI’s frightening tendency to hallucinate “facts” and fabricate information and opinions out of thin air—there’s something nonsensical (and bone-chillingly dystopian) about the suggestion that the answer to the decrease in human connection is to further remove humans from the equation.
If the average American only has three friends but wants more, the answer is not AI chatbots. The answer is to ask what’s different about this cultural moment that’s making friendship harder and adjust our approach to making and keeping friends accordingly.
And in that respect, tech has definitely contributed to reshaping relational connections wholesale. It’s hard to see how leaning even further in that direction will lead to a solution.
I’m not a tech-fearing Luddite.
Yet, as with most good things, there are potential pitfalls involved in adopting evolving technologies that, amid engaging the good, we should seek to address.
One of these pitfalls, pointed out by tech scholar L.M. Sacasas in his essay “The Art of Living,” is that the more we immerse ourselves in the seemingly limitless sense of hyper-connection afforded by digital spaces, the less aware we may be of—and, therefore, the less responsive we become to—the embodied realities of our here and now.
Which is not to say that everyone needs to log off and throw our devices into the sea.
But it does mean we need to acknowledge how current realities have reshaped friendship and ask how we can respond with intentionality moving forward.
If, in response to my loneliness, I embrace the seemingly limitless possibilities of AI chatbots as a tool that will cure my loneliness, I’m merely cutting myself off from the very thing that could provide a solution: pressing forward in pursuit of real, human friendships.
Is this harder? Yes.
Risky? Absolutely.
More time-consuming and emotionally taxing than logging in and chatting with an AI insta-friend? In the short run, of course.
But in the long run, like everything else in life that’s really worth doing, building real friendships with honest-to-goodness people—with all their challenges and idosyncracies—is infinitely more rewarding.
Note: If you find yourself saying, “Yes, Ruth. I’m with you. I agree that there’s something different about this cultural moment that’s making friendship harder and that we must adjust our approach to making and keeping friends accordingly. I’m just not sure what to do.”
If that’s you, follow along. More discussions, tools, and resources are on the way.
I am aghast. How could an AI chat ever be considered a substitute for a human? We have made a couple cross-country moves, and it is a ton of work to establish friendships, so I have genuine sympathy for those experiencing loneliness. The thought of prescribing an AI chatbot is horrifying. After a move, I pursue friendships zealously, even strategically. I do not leave it to chance. Through practice, I have learned how to take the initiative and become adept at exchanging numbers and making plans and asking for help. It sounds silly when I spell it out like that, but these are skills I had to learn as an adult living in a brand new city and in a brand new state without any family in driving distance and lots of little humans to keep alive. There's no way an AI chat could have even come close to meeting these needs. The thought of generations growing up without the practice it requires to get good at these friendship making skills is chilling.
I’m with you. I think we adults forget that maintaining and making new friends does require some efforts and yes we are busy but the answer to more friends/less loneliness is NOT AI 🤖 bot friends.