It’s no secret that people today are lonelier than at any point in human history. Statistics show that we take part in inherently social activities, like having people over for dinner, going to church, or going to a sporting event, far less than we did 10, 20, or 50 years ago. The internet age has accelerated that trend, but it’s been a persistent problem for decades. The loneliness epidemic has become one of the biggest social issues not just in America but also worldwide.
Total social isolation was once hard to achieve, but today, even people living in cities can become completely reclusive. Japan tracks a horrifying figure known as “lonely deaths,” where people are found dead in their homes, but nobody has noticed because they didn’t have anyone who cared for them. A famous example was in 2000, when an elderly man was found dead in his apartment, and he had been lying there dead for three years. His rent and bills were auto-paid. Officials discovered him only when his bank account ran out of money, and they came to his door to evict him.
In the past, we thought the solution to loneliness was to go out and find people. In the present, many use the internet to numb the desire for connection instead. More recently, we have seen a different “solution” that could send us in a bizarre direction.
The rise of AI has been rapid and turbulent. It has fundamentally changed so many aspects of our lives. As I have previously written, it can be a useful tool for education. But when we use it as a substitute for our own brain, we risk stunting our intellectual capabilities. This can also be true in the emotional sense.
Tech companies spend billions every year to make their chatbots sound more and more human. They have found that the more the AI can sound like a friend, the more engaged their users will be. These AI chatbots now sound so lifelike they are almost indistinguishable from a human. It isn’t just limited to language generators either. Some AIs let you talk to them as though you were talking to another human on FaceTime or Zoom.
This could have scary applications. For example, offshore scammers will find it easier to succeed, as they can use a familiar, trustworthy-sounding accent instead of speaking directly with their own.
But one of the more perverse and widespread ways we have seen this new advance in AI be applied is in the relational space. Many people have started to treat certain human-looking robots as close companions, and some even go further and are pursuing romantic relationships with AI chatbots.
The “AI girlfriend” has been a common punchline amongst my generation for years, but now it seems that some people are so starved for connection, and so unwilling to actually go out and form relationships with real human beings, that they attempt to fill that void with a bunch of attractive-looking zeros and ones.
This trend has apparently become so popular that some restaurants and cafes have added single-seat, internet-friendly tables to their dining rooms, so people can go on “dates” with a face on an iPad.
Unfortunately, this phenomenon may become more prevalent in society. Survey data has shown that 42% of high schoolers have admitted to using AI for companionship of some sort, and one in five have said that they or someone they know has a romantic relationship with AI.
Unfortunately, today’s young people have grown up in a society where interacting with other people is strictly optional, and many are feeling the effects of being lonely. Evidently, there is a class of people who are both extremely lonely and simultaneously refuse to interact with people in a meaningful way. So they turn to fake things.
As people who know the advantages and pleasures of knowing other real humans, we must confront the issue of relational AI and help point our young people away from the epidemic of fake companionship, instead pointing to genuine connection with friends and family.
