Recently, I read an article about how some people found new breakthroughs in dating with their AI partners. This floored me. I haven’t met anyone in real life who uses ChatGPT for this purpose, so at first I dismissed it as something so extreme that news outlets just needed to report on it. However, more and more people have admitted they use ChatGPT as a therapist, telling the service about their woes and worries in exchange for comfort or validation.
What’s even more disturbing is that these concepts are becoming actual business ideas. An ad recently popped up in New York City subways for some product simply dubbed “Friend.” The brand marketed a necklace that acted as your companion. The user would talk to this necklace, and it would respond back with the help of AI. Frankly, it’s very dystopian and creepy. Because the service is AI and not an actual human, any interactions with it are inherently one-sided.
These “Friend” necklaces work by collecting data from the user’s personal life. Once the user speaks into it, the necklace is supposed to send a text that responds to whatever the user said. Not only does this system hard-launch surveillance into your daily life, it also doesn’t work properly.
The increased use of chatbots as a friend or companion traps people in their own minds — these models tend to agree with the user. A lot of people nowadays are disillusioned with real-life happenings around the world. It gets tiring to hear about bad news, and even more tiring when someone doesn’t agree with your views or tries to argue with you. But that fatigue shouldn’t be the reason why someone isolates themselves to the web.
The varieties of opinions that exist in real life is precisely the reason why more people should interact with each other. By conversing with others, you can grow your own thoughts and either learn something new or solidify your values on a matter. Talking to AI won’t do that. Sure, you might be able to ask it to act mean or be brutally honest, but at the end of the day, it’s a business model that wants the consumer to keep interacting with it. While AI services pull from the internet in their responses, it will ultimately be catered to user inputs.
While this phenomenon of people using chatbots in the place of actual human connection isn’t too widespread, it’s still concerning that the idea of a ChatGPT friend exists. By favoring to “talk” with AI instead of a real person, people are trapping themselves in an echo chamber without any productive interactions. Besides, with the “loneliness epidemic” that especially affects younger populations, going outside and actually communicating with real humans might be the cure. I know that the internet has a lot of negative opinions, and it’s quick to judge someone, but I believe that face-to-face interactions result in genuine reactions. Talking to real people might not give you the answer that you want, but it will give you a real connection.