Words by: Constance Mason
I have heard many people confess to using ChatGPT as a ‘therapist’, somewhere to vent and receive advice from an unbiased source. However, people’s relationships with AI systems are becoming increasingly involved. Why enlist AI to be just your therapist when it could also be your best friend?
Avi Schiffman wants exactly that. He is the creator of ‘Friend’, advertised as a ‘wearable AI companion’. ‘Friend’ records all of its user’s conversations and can respond to what it hears in a text format through an app. The promotional video for the product provides some examples of ‘Friend’s’ capabilities: whilst a girl watches TV on her phone, a message from ‘Emily’, the name she has given her companion, appears on her screen. The message states: ‘This show is completely underrated’. The video aims to show how your ‘Friend’ takes an interest in your interests and cares about what you care about. They are customisable, using the data gathered by observing its surroundings to gain more knowledge about its users to become the ultimate companion.
The product was created to combat the ever increasing ‘loneliness epidemic’, providing a companion to speak to and interact with. As it is adapted to each user, listening to their every word, it could even be used to help those who struggle with knowing what to say in social interactions, or suggest opening lines of conversation. Whilst there are potential benefits, the issue lies in knowing that this is just a bandage attempting to cover a much deeper issue and could instead catalyse people’s isolation rather than improving their sociability.
Providing those who struggle with social interaction with a ‘Friend’ eradicates the need for the pursuit of any tangible, meaningful relationship or connection.
This pitfall has been heavily stressed in the negative backlash towards ‘Friend’ since its release. Schiffman’s million-dollar advertising campaign in the New York Subway system has been relentlessly vandalised by people criticising the product and its counter-intuitive approach to solving social isolation. Given that a major reason for today’s loneliness epidemic is a lack of community, encouraging friendships with artificial intelligence fuels a self-fulfilling prophecy. Some of the graffiti on the subway even encourages others to “do mutual aid or volunteer for a community garden.”
If we want to return to a more community-centred and caring world, we must seek human connection rather than retreating into ourselves and ‘treating’ our loneliness with synthetic friendships. Another subway ad which was vandalised reads bleakly, ‘“AI DOESN’T CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE”. This is the most crucial part to remember as AI systems begin to invade everyday human connection. Regardless of how well-trained or tailored to your needs your ‘Friend’ may be, they are not and will never be real. They will glitch, or run out of battery, and if you were to die, they would be entirely unaware, able to be reprogrammed and start anew as a companion for a new human without a second ‘thought’.
Whilst ‘Friend’ seems initially well-intentioned, and AI in general has certain undeniable benefits, it has been too far removed from its original purposes of providing information and promoting technological advancement. Companies and CEOs like Schiffman are now able to use AI to market products to vulnerable and insecure individuals, further isolating them from human connection and reinforcing the idea that their AI companion is the only one that ‘understands’ them. In wielding words like ‘understands’ there is evidence of how the ‘Friend’ product has been designed to infiltrate and mimic humanity. We are attributing human qualities to something which is merely programmed to replicate human friendship, not to actually feel it. The satisfaction of friendship arises from the active decision of two people to spend time together because of a mutual bond of love and respect. It cannot be bought or owned. As graffiti vigilantes state, “HUMAN CONNECTION IS SACRED”, and not only is it sacred, it’s irreplaceable.
