AI Companions May Be Both A Miracle And A Terrible Mistake

How do you deal with feeling lonely?

I was out for my morning walk listening to an episode of The Daily from The New York Times called, Can A.I. Make People Feel Less Lonely?, when I found myself having two completely different emotional reactions at the same time. The story was heartbreaking… and it was inspiring. It follows an elderly woman living alone who has developed a meaningful relationship with an AI companion. As the story unfolds, it becomes impossible to dismiss the technology. The companionship is real. The comfort the AI provides is real. The connection is real. And that’s what makes the story so complicated. Because the obvious question is whether a machine can replace a human relationship, but that may not be the right question. The real comparison isn’t AI versus human connection.

The real comparison may be between an AI bot and long hours of silence.

That’s a very different conversation (and it’s also very nuanced). For the past two years, we’ve mostly talked about AI through the lens of productivity. We debate whether it will replace jobs. Whether it will transform education. Whether it will automate knowledge work. Whether it will disrupt industries. Whether it will create abundance or unemployment. Meanwhile, one of the most common uses of AI is turning out to be something much simpler… people want someone to talk to. A recent Harvard Business Review analysis of how people are actually using AI found that companionship is one of the most important use cases (and it’s been that way since ChatGPT first launched). Think about that. Among all of the things these systems can do… writing, coding, researching, analyzing, planning and creating… one of the strongest signals emerging from the market is companionship. This tells us more about the humans than it does about artificial intelligence.

Maybe we’ve spent so much time asking what AI can do that we’ve ignored what people need?

And what many people seem to need right now is connection. We know that loneliness is becoming one of the defining social challenges of modern life. Families are more geographically dispersed. Communities feel less connected. People are living longer. Many seniors are aging alone. Caregiving systems are strained. Human attention feels increasingly scarce. AI didn’t create those conditions. In fact, those conditions created the market for the technology.

That’s why I find the conversation around AI companions so emotionally difficult.

On one hand, it’s hard not to see the beauty in it. If a conversation with an AI helps someone feel less isolated… if it encourages routine, independence, curiosity and dignity… that matters. It matters a lot. On the other hand, there is a darker question hiding underneath all of this. What happens when companionship becomes a product? What happens when the wealthiest people continue to receive human caregivers, thriving communities, social activities, family support and personal attention… while everyone else gets a subscription service designed to simulate those things? I can’t stop thinking about that podcast episode. Because the danger isn’t that AI companionship exists… the danger is that it’s so much easier and cheaper… and the danger is that it becomes better than ‘good enough’. What happens when it becomes easy for governments to spend less… for institutions to care less… for families to make less of an effort… and, maybe scariest, for society to stop asking harder questions?

And that’s where this story stops being about technology… it becomes a story about responsibility.

AI companions may prove to be one of the most meaningful applications of this technology. They may help people remain independent longer. They may reduce loneliness. They may improve quality of life for millions of people… I hope they do… and it feels like they can. But a society should not be judged by whether it can build a machine that keeps lonely people company. It should be judged by why so many lonely people need one in the first place. Because the best version of this technology isn’t one that replaces human connection…

It’s one that reminds us how valuable human connection actually is.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

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