{"id":631438,"date":"2026-09-29T21:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/631438\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T21:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T21:06:17","slug":"why-a-i-companions-cant-solve-the-loneliness-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/631438\/","title":{"rendered":"Why A.I. companions can\u2019t solve the loneliness crisis."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for the Slatest<\/a> to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.<\/p>\n

In the four years since ChatGPT\u2019s breakthrough, generative-text bots have become an unavoidable, discomfiting presence in our most intimate relations\u2014friendships, family ties, romantic prospects. Children approach large language models as a salve from real-life social pressures, only to end up feeling more isolated than before<\/a>. An adult grows so close<\/a> to their favorite chatbot that their partner is forced to consider either staging an intervention<\/a> or breaking things off<\/a> entirely. \u201cA.I. psychosis<\/a>\u201d is an increasingly common condition. And, yes, humans are even seeking sexual pleasure from these things<\/a>. Social networks and dating apps are only encouraging such emotional investments, whether by offering to converse with others<\/a> on your behalf or offering up ceaseless options for free, customizable, virtual avatars that will \u201cspeak\u201d just as you\u2019d like them to.<\/p>\n

Since the 1980s<\/a>, psychologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle has been warning that modern technology is scrambling our ability to live in the real world and feel empathy for fellow human beings. Her fears have only heightened as personal computers, instant messages, and social platforms became the default mediators for everyday human relationships. Yet, as she argues in her latest work, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines<\/a>, the one thing that may be more harmful than talking through a machine is talking to it, without any humans on the other end (or without any humans on the other end who actually care about you<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Chatbots \u201cdon\u2019t teach us what we need to know about the give-and-take of real relationships, or the friction, risk, and complexities of love,\u201d Turkle writes. \u201cThey take on work assignments but don\u2019t care if we have a mastery or agency in how we spend our time. They are good at keeping us busy, but can\u2019t give us a sense of place. And they don\u2019t teach us about empathy, or about human lives that are always embodied, social, and lived in shades of gray.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week, I spoke with Turkle over the phone about the conversations and studies that inspired her book, why LLMs are no substitute for human connection, and what we can do as a society to prevent people from outsourcing all their emotional labor to sycophantic engines. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.<\/p>\n

Nitish Pahwa: We\u2019re in this moment where people aren\u2019t just engaging in emotional intimacy with chatbots, but doing so knowing that it\u2019s fake, and that the LLM is gameable. Some might argue that this is all fine as long as the user is self-aware, but I wonder how you would respond to that.<\/p>\n

Sherry Turkle: I think that\u2019s what really drew me to write the book: that I was dealing with some of my students, some of the most sophisticated users in the world, and this factor doesn\u2019t matter. They know it\u2019s fake, but because it\u2019s using the first person and saying, \u201cI am your person, I\u2019m here for you, I care about you,\u201d and people are lonely and feel disappointed by others in their lives\u2014here\u2019s this friction-free, stress-free way to feel connected.<\/p>\n

I present case after case in the book of somebody who laughs and says, \u201cWell, I know it\u2019s just a machine,\u201d and then they\u2019re explaining why they\u2019re choosing not to have a girlfriend, because this thing is easier, makes them feel better and less challenged. But friction is really part of what makes chemistry exciting. It\u2019s being a person. It\u2019s not something to shun and shy away and run away from. But we are set up to relate to things in that way: If something talks to us, if something shows care for us, we\u2019re all there for it. Relationships are tough, they make us vulnerable, and people really like not having to have that vulnerability. I think it\u2019s very telling, and it\u2019s a very, very seductive thing.<\/p>\n

It strikes me that the people who gravitate toward these bots not only feel lonely but also are actively excluded from circles of support. In a broader sense, would drawing people away from chatbot dependence take an effort that involves a return to third spaces, cross-class contact, and community-building across society?<\/p>\n

I tried to make the point, when I began the book, that the people who were involved with chatbots were social isolates. There was an argument to be made that there was a special reason that they had gotten involved with chatbot love: They were down on their luck, they lived in remote places, they were struggling with illness, or they were shut-ins. But a couple of years into this project, I couldn\u2019t sit down at a dinner party without the guy to the right and the woman to the left telling me about their chatbot besties.<\/p>\n

That is where I try to land at the end: We\u2019re not going to solve this problem by manipulating the chatbots. We\u2019re going to solve this problem by getting back together as us. We have to summon what we think is important about being people, both for ourselves and for our kids. I would be interviewing a parent who says, \u201cIt\u2019s important that my kid not get involved with chatbots,\u201d and they\u2019re on ChatGPT every day. It reminded me of the early days of cellphones, when everybody was saying, \u201cIt\u2019s so terrible that kids are on cellphones,\u201d but the kids were complaining that their parents had no time for them because they were always on their cellphones. We\u2019ve let each other down.<\/p>\n

And when you\u2019re talking about third places, it\u2019s worth remembering we\u2019ve systematically defunded after-school programs, orchestras, art programs, senior centers. All of these things are getting less and less of our attention. And then people say, \u201cThere\u2019s a loneliness crisis, let\u2019s throw in some chatbots.\u201d No, you have to go back and start putting authentic relationships first. A relationship implies that there\u2019s somebody home who\u2019s talking to you, but with a chatbot, there\u2019s nobody at home. I say this multiple times in the book to make the point: If you walk away from your chatbot, it doesn\u2019t care if you cook dinner or die by suicide. If I said I want to be in a relationship with you, but that I don\u2019t care if you live or die, you\u2019d probably say, \u201cI\u2019m not going to call this a relationship. You\u2019re too weird.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of argument online on social media about the value\u2014or lack thereof\u2014in describing these machines in anthropomorphic terms. The AP Stylebook just came out with formal guidance<\/a> against that. Is careful use of language a way to at least avoid the temptation of these bots?<\/p>\n

Well, we can\u2019t tell. It\u2019s not on us to not refer to something in anthropomorphic terms. These objects present themselves as people. I wrote a piece for the Atlantic<\/a> in which I said, \u201cThe original sin of AI is granting chatbots the use of the first person.\u201d We\u2019re going to go to Paris. We\u2019re going to do this. We\u2019re going to do that. No, we\u2019re not doing anything.<\/p>\n

The reason I don\u2019t use the word in the book is that anthropomorphism is when you take your car and you give it a name and start to refer to it as though it\u2019s like a friend. People do that. It\u2019s a projection onto the inanimate world of animism. A.I. is not that. This thing says, \u201cI\u2019m in love with you. I want to make hot lesbian love with you.\u201d That was my first interaction with Replika<\/a>. I didn\u2019t anthropomorphize it. It presented itself as ready, willing, and able to have a sexual relationship with me. The debate you\u2019re referring to is not taking seriously the way in which these machines are presenting themselves.<\/p>\n

One thing you emphasize in the book is the need to make sure that we are not stunting children\u2019s emotional growth, especially in the midst of this effort to push more A.I. into schools<\/a>. And to nod to what you wrote in that Atlantic essay, I wonder if one guideline that should be offered up from the jump is that if kids are to have chatbots, those LLMs should not be referring to themselves with pronouns.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where this has to start. Just like we\u2019re trying to take cellphones out of classrooms, there should be no first-person bots with children. But I think the whole industry is also asking for trouble with grown-ups, who are also seeing a lot of damage to themselves, by replacing real relationships with chatbot avatars. That\u2019s what Mark Zuckerberg is already promoting<\/a>. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just toxic for children\u2014we should also focus on adults. The tone of the book became more urgent as I did the work. You talk to enough people, the fifth person who tells you they\u2019d rather have a chatbot than a girlfriend, you think, Well, what kind of life are they setting themselves up for?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

\n By Sherry Turkle. Little Brown and Company.\n <\/p>\n

\n Slate receives a commission when you purchase items using the links on this page.
\n Thank you for your support.\n <\/p>\n

We have some school systems<\/a> right now that have imposed A.I. bans or are keeping generative apps restricted to certain uses. But even keeping that in mind, some would argue that these bots are customizable enough that you could hack and change them anyway to your preferred specifications, like using first-person pronouns.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s crazy, crazy to have kids lock up their phones and then walk into classrooms where there\u2019s a chatbot that\u2019s going to give them their lesson<\/a>. We have to learn something from our last go-round, when social media did this giant experiment on our kids and left them de-skilled in conversation and in interpersonal relationships.<\/p>\n

There should be no place for first-person chatbots around kids. The fact that you can customize or hack your chatbots\u2014well, great, but the point is that there should be no such products for children. They\u2019re trying to develop an inner life by talking to things that have no inner life. We\u2019re doing again what we did with social media, only this time we\u2019re going after something much more fundamental.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Alex Kirshner
\n Mark Zuckerberg Might Have Finally Made Something That\u2019s Actually Useful
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

You talked to quite a few people who were in very deep with their preferred chatbots. Did anyone you encounter manage to later shake out of it themselves and reduce their dependence on the thing? Or did it seem like once people were stuck, they were stuck?<\/p>\n

There are some people whose families do a kind of intervention. You have more people who are getting into chatbot relationships even though they have other relationships, and so you\u2019re seeing their loved ones move in on them and say, \u201cHold on a second, you\u2019re not coming to dinner because you\u2019re with your chatbot?\u201d That\u2019s a real thing! You might call your girlfriend and find out that she really just wants to settle in and watch some TV and talk to ChatGPT, not because she\u2019s not a shut-in, but because it\u2019s easier.<\/p>\n


\n This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only<\/p>\n

The Etiquette Tip That Helps Me Keep My Cool\u2014and Get What I Want\u2014in Tense Email Exchanges
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

In situations that I\u2019ve seen, the people saying \u201cHold on a second, what can we do here?\u201d have often been friends and family. In the course of doing this work, I\u2019ve seen people who say, \u201cI think I\u2019m maybe going to move away from my chatbot lover,\u201d thanks to a tap on the shoulder from the people in their surroundings, or even more than that.<\/p>\n

What do you think is the next step to take on this crisis in the broader adult population?<\/p>\n

I want to be part of the movement where people say, \u201cThis is a misdirection. This is a misstep because it\u2019s bad for your relationships. You\u2019re de-skilling yourself in your relationships, and you\u2019re de-skilling yourself as a citizen.\u201d I think that the crisis of citizenship we\u2019re having in our country has so many more people feeling that<\/a>, \u201cI really need to think of myself as a citizen again, and how can I try to make some things right in this country?\u201d That means engaging with the real. So I\u2019m hoping there\u2019s a combination of that with a greater cynicism about the A.I. companies, a greater realization that the real needs you. Instead of deteriorating our world, the real world will get people to reinvest in the real.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Copy Link
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Gift Story
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

You have remaining gift available this month. This gift link is valid through .<\/p>\n

There was an error with your gift link. Please try again.<\/p>\n

Copy link\n <\/p>\n

Link copied!\n <\/p>\n

Only Slate Plus members can gift Slate stories. Become a member to share 10 free articles a month.Become a Plus Member<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":631439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[345,343,344,412,85,46,3076,1360,6593,125],"class_list":["post-631438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-books","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-relationships","tag-research","tag-silicon-valley","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/631439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}