Artificial intelligence friends? To steal a line from the great Randy Jackson, “that’s a no from me, dog.”
It’s hard to remember how things were before the “Social Media Age” took over. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an age without a lot of technology and online access, though things like iPhones and Instagram slowly started rolling out while I was still in my younger days.
If you are wondering how old I am, I had an iPod Nano (without a screen) at one point.
I’d guess that making friends used to be a lot easier… when everyone wasn’t buried in their phones. Which is kind of the irony here, isn’t it? Not too long ago, I got some weird looks because I was standing in a line and I didn’t have my phone out. Everyone else was probably thinking, “Hey, aren’t you supposed to be dissociating with your tech-infused pocket rectangle?”
Hilariously, our modern era’s solution to having and making more friends isn’t to disconnect from our devices… it’s to get even further entrenched with them. That’s according to Facebook and Meta creator Mark Zuckerberg, who recently introduced that his company is working to make artificial intelligence friends (basically chat bots) to supplement people’s existing friend groups:
“I think as the personalization loop kicks in, and the AI starts to get to know you better and better, I just think that will be really compelling. One thing, just from working on social media for a long time, is this stat that I always think is crazy. The average American has fewer than 3 friends. 3 people they consider friends. The average person has demand for meaningfully more… I think it’s 15 friends or something.”
Zuckerberg insists Meta is doing this because people are wanting more connectivity. Apparently in the mind of big-tech, more connectivity actually means less connectivity… at least with real people. That being said, when the Meta CEO was asked if these AI friends could replace personal, real life connections, he answered with this:
“My default is that the answer to that is probably no. I think there are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is that people don’t have the connection and they feel more alone.”
Yeah, that’s really interesting, and I see where he is… GET THOSE AI FRIENDS OUT OF HERE.
Can I go to a concert with my AI friend? Can I go drink a beer at a dive bar with my AI friend? Even if the answer to those questions is “Yes,” it’s really a big ol’ “NO!” There’s no replacing the human connection, and there’s nothing that can take the place of a bunch of human beings getting together and enjoying a communal experience.
The real kicker is that social media, AKA Meta’s own Facebook and Instagram, is DIRECTLY responsible for kids growing up in a world where they don’t make real personal relationships, don’t have as many real life friends as they’d like, and don’t have a great ability to communicate face to face, and now he plans to fix it with… more isolation and technology. The old “create the problem and then sell people the solution” trick. And all under this noble guise of community and connection… and I genuinely can’t tell if Mark is aware of that or if he thinks he’s actually trying to help.
So if you are reading this, Mr. Zuckerburg, feel free to go ahead and drop that AI friendship plan. Instead, I invite you to jump in on a revolutionary, friendship-fostering idea that I just came up with: BookFace. It’s where you book it down to your local watering hole and stand face-to-face with real people. I’ve made plenty of friends doing just that, and I’ll be too busy continuing to BookFace to get caught up in this artificial intelligence friend bull-honkey…
At the end of the day, Meta fully relies on, and makes money when, people are disconnected from each other and have their face buried in their phones. And now, instead of spending most of your time on your phone, you can spend all of it. Get rid of it.
The post Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Meta’s Plan To Create “AI Friends” After 20 Years Of Isolating People With Social Media Empire first appeared on Whiskey Riff.