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Mark Zuckerberg will build you a friend
Of late, I have been writing with some intensity about what AI and social media are doing to our ability to process reality. Inherent in my criticisms is the suggestion that not dealing with reality has a downside — if we don’t know what is real, then we will fall for false claims about reality made by scammers, salesmen, and politicians alike.
Something similar is happening when it comes to the idea of friendship.
Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg, speaking about friends as if they are commodities in a market, said that the average American has three friends but there is “demand” for 15. He was talking about AI “friends” filling this demand and making people less lonely. Of course, he would want this demand to be fulfilled by “friends” his company supplies and in doing so, steal even more personal data than before so he can get rich off it. Good old capitalist profit-mongering. Did I mention there is already an AI service that will call your old parents if your busy schedule doesn’t allow you to?
Apparently, your friends don’t need to be human beings. Enough has been written and said about tech bros not knowing how humans work, so I will not add to it. But if there is anything we can take away from the proposed trend of replacing human connection with this complete lack of connection, it is that before you provide a solution, you…
