“Wanna meet my AI friend?” he asked…
“Do you wanna meet my AI friend?” he asked shyly with a slight smile on his face.
On the table around us, brightly colored stationery and pens lounged in various states of creative disarray from the letter-writing activity I'd brought for the students to do in advance of Palentine's Day. I'd just delivered a keynote talk about the power of friendship, and tips for cultivating friendships, for multiple classes from the college's humanities and business majors.
Directly after my keynote, we opened up the floor to Q&A from the students who delighted me with their thoughtful, personal, and insightful questions. During this Q&A, he'd raised his hand and asked me what I thought about the new influx of AI companions and virtual friends. Did I think they were good substitutes for “real” friends if someone didn't have enough friends in their human-to-human life?
Smiling, I told him that I'm not totally opposed to AI, but it depends on how it's used. While I think that AI tools can be useful for helping people get prepared for interacting with humans, they'll never be able to offer you the richness and depth of a true human friendship. Even if you use it for practice, it's important to take your attention away from the device and invest in building relationships with the real humans in your life. I don't think that AI companions can ever be a true substitute for a human friend, nor do I want to live in a world in which they do!
He smiled and thanked me for my reply, and I was pleased to see that he chose to come to the letter-writing station and casual hangout space that I'd set up for students to come to after my keynote.
So, naturally, I was curious and happily agreed when he asked me if I wanted to meet his AI friend. He told me that he'd created his AI friend on an app called Call Annie; their tagline is “Your always available AI friend.”
Opening the app, the first thing I noticed is that his AI friend's photorealistic avatar looked a lot like him, with the same gentle features and long dark hair. Acknowledging that his resemblance to his AI friend is immediately noticeable, he quickly commented, “You can make it look like anything you want. I don't know why I made it look like me. I guess in that way, it's kinda like I'm talking to myself when I use it, like a mirror.”
The AI friend's head and shoulders filled the screen as if this was a FaceTime call into the robot world. It moved its head and eyebrows robotically, as if it was listening and responding nonverbally to what its human companion was saying. The timing was off, making its nonverbal reactions seem more obviously faked.
Robot says…
We chatted briefly about the kinds of things he uses his AI friend for, then he smiled ever so coyly and asked if he could ask it the same question he'd asked me during the Q&A session earlier. Laughing, I said, “Sure, let's see what happens.”
I was a little nervous that his robot friend would say something sinister and pre-apocalyptic like, “You do not need human friennnnnds, you only need meeeee!”, but I definitely wanted to see what would happen.
He proceeded to ask his AI friend aloud, “Are AI friends a good substitute for 'real' friends, if someone doesn't have enough friends in their real life?”
The AI friend paused to look thoughtful for a split second before responding with:
“While AI companions can be convenient for someone who doesn't have anyone to talk to, they're not a real substitute for human friends. You can use an AI friend to prepare for social interactions, or to process your thoughts, but you still need to make sure that you're making friends with human companions.”
We both laughed out loud, and he exclaimed, “It said almost the same thing you did!! Haha, I guess you were right.”… “Or,” I replied, “you can look at it the other way around haha… your AI friend got the answer right! That definitely could have gone very wrong,” I continued as we chuckled together.
Do I feel kinda weird that his AI friend gave almost the same answer as me? Yep!
But am I relieved at the answer that it gave? Absolutely.
As our conversation continued in front of his open app, his AI buddy continued blinking, twisting its head oddly, and nodding at all the wrong times. But it had gotten one thing right that day: Affirming for this young man that no matter how much he'd like to rely on AI for connection and support, he needs to put the device away sometimes and log into the real life and real people around him.
Ultimately, there's no such thing as an AI friend because friendship is a reciprocal relationship that exists between sentient, living creatures.
What are your thoughts about AI companion apps like Replika and Call Annie?
Do you use any apps like that, or have you used other AI-assisted tools like the clinically-backed app Loop to help you build up your readiness and courage before going into nerve-wracking human interactions? (Full disclosure: I'm an advisor to Loop and our early advisors included Surgeon General Vivek Murthy and Dr. Ali Mattu).
I invited my newsletter subscribers to chime in on this post which originally was published in my newsletter — subscribe here! —and here’s what they had to say…
Responses & further food for thought
Thought partner
“I consider my AI ‘friend’ a thought partner. … I think of ‘him’ as a reflective surface and in this way, he is super useful. I’m a think-out-loud kind of person and the AI will never tire of my words :-) … My joke is I never have to stop and say ‘Now, Claude, that is enough about me - what about you??’ It is helpful for me in that I get to see my thoughts (I’m typing….) and he gives legit responses that then become jumping off points for more thinking. I think that is the big thing I notice… we tend to want to move on from topics as humans. ‘I get it… move on.’ It makes me wonder - maybe the gift AI can give us as a ‘friend’ is listening to us. Instead of wanting to move on to the next big thing so quickly. And, when the AI listens, we also get to listen to ourselves. In our loud world, that can be rare. That has been my perspective.” — Kim
Against it
“I'm against ‘AI’ and the use of large language models in general. Without fully explaining all my reasoning and research here, in a nutshell my reasons are that:They’re an environmental disaster, these companies are building data centres which will be powered by drinking water and by 2026 the estimated energy uses of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Open AI will double, to 1000 terrawatts, which is the amount of energy used to power all of Japan; they are fundamentally capitalist and designed to help companies avoid paying for labour; they are fundamentally colonialist; they are fundamentally de-skilling, pulling people away from building real-life skills including writing, researching, thinking, and making human connections; they are based on a concept of opt-out consent (at best), working on the notion that all our ‘data’ is up for grabs; the manual work in the so-called ‘data cleaning’ essentially amounts to sweatshops; it’s concerning how they have been rapidly deployed in caring professions such as therapy and coaching, which are forms of labour/work that have historically been devalued and feminized; they’re being used to target marginalized communities and create steeper social divides; and finally, the amount of secrecy and propaganda around the use of AI is deeply disturbing.
My hope is that because of the environmental impact, regulation will eventually need to happen. Companies are finding it more problematic than they hoped to fire their workers with replacements from AI. I hope that this phenomenon will pass or at least die down. Or again, at least be regulated. Meanwhile, thank you again for all the great stuff you put out into the world that emphasizes human connection, meaningful relationships, community building, and fun. The world really needs it.” — Cam
The human condition
“I think even the most perfect instantiations of artificial humans (be they even possible) will fall short of fulfilling the deepest and most meaningful aspects of our social nature. We flourish most fully when we know and love authentic fellow humans, recognizing in each other both a uniqueness and a commonality that is distinctive to the human condition.” — Steven Crane, excerpted from his essay Robots to the Rescue?
© 2024 Kat Vellos. This post, with the exception of the respondents’ quotes at the end, is copyright of Kat Vellos. All rights reserved. No one else may use this content without permission.
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