Great article! Really align with your discussion points on designing AI for longer-term 'cold state' preferences, and I completely agree, however, it got me thinking - would anyone want to use it then? or rather, would everyone want to use it? I think social media, for instance, is so popular and 'difficult to put down' exactly because of its short-term pleasure. I feel as though businesses will not engineer 'healthier' systems unless regulations force them to...
I think of gym memberships. People sign up and pay huge fees--then rarely attend. So we know both that people aspire to betterment, and struggle to follow through. Perhaps if one is closely connected with an AI assistant, it could use behavioral insights to help people do what they'd reflectively prefer to do rather than what they do impulsively. But that poses a new question: What happens to people if we're being nudged into everything, rather than acting of our own summoned will....? Thank you, Alana, for your thought-provoking note!
One of the dilemmas that I have been pondering is the person for whom society has already largely rejected, including the elderly and the homebound. Is it better to leave the loneliness alone? Or is it kinder to offer an AI solution? I personally lean towards the kindness of AI support, but recognizing it’s incredibly tricky. Thanks for this exceptional dive.
I feel exactly this conflict too. It feels so cruel to tell isolated people that certain sorts of companionship are not OK. But what becomes of society if "friends" require nothing of you...? Thank you for your note, Robin!
The Lil’ Brother concept is I guess an advanced version of tomagotchi.
But this point aside, the inconvenice of living in a community, as you implied, is a feature not a bug.
The question of someone needing you back is interesting to ponder, but turning interaction into something we can make more conveninent like online shopping or food ordering, seeing the negative effect of the “convenience uber alles” mentality on everything it touched, doesn’t seem like it’s gonna end well imo.
Hey Tom, I really enjoyed your piece on how AI might affect loneliness; it’s an intriguing dive into our modern predicament where, paradoxically, more tech does seem to be making us lonelier even as it offers new avenues for connection. You paint this vivid picture of AI companions being both a potential balm for solitude and a crutch that may leave us more disconnected from one another. It’s wild, isn’t it, to think about how personalised AI could change our social fabric? Yet it also raises important questions about what relationships will look like in the future—if we’re running to machines for comfort, what does that say about our connections with each other? You’ve really got me pondering the balance between embracing innovative tech and retaining the messy, but vital, human interactions that shape our lives. Cheers for the thought-provoking read!
Thanks so much for your comment, Carlos! I agree with you: a big question about AI companions might not be whether they'll work as future friends, but whether we will...
I enjoyed this article! One incredibly anal point is that I don’t think this is what Shakespeare is saying in Sonnet 29 (“Shakespeare portrays loneliness as the distress of noticing one’s exclusion, only to realize that nobody even cares"). The first part of this poem is about the agony of being outcast and envying others, but isn’t primarily about others’ indifference to his suffering.
A much better example would be Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts, which is I think much more centrally focussed on this idea.
“In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Thanks, Nell! I love this kind of parsing--and thanks for pointing me back to that Auden poem, which I haven't looked at in years. You're definitely right that Shakespeare's sonnet isn't primarily about loneliness. I would argue, though, that he's portraying the experience as I described. Or so it struck me. Maybe we need to ask an LLM to adjudicate ... :)
Great article! Really align with your discussion points on designing AI for longer-term 'cold state' preferences, and I completely agree, however, it got me thinking - would anyone want to use it then? or rather, would everyone want to use it? I think social media, for instance, is so popular and 'difficult to put down' exactly because of its short-term pleasure. I feel as though businesses will not engineer 'healthier' systems unless regulations force them to...
I think of gym memberships. People sign up and pay huge fees--then rarely attend. So we know both that people aspire to betterment, and struggle to follow through. Perhaps if one is closely connected with an AI assistant, it could use behavioral insights to help people do what they'd reflectively prefer to do rather than what they do impulsively. But that poses a new question: What happens to people if we're being nudged into everything, rather than acting of our own summoned will....? Thank you, Alana, for your thought-provoking note!
One of the dilemmas that I have been pondering is the person for whom society has already largely rejected, including the elderly and the homebound. Is it better to leave the loneliness alone? Or is it kinder to offer an AI solution? I personally lean towards the kindness of AI support, but recognizing it’s incredibly tricky. Thanks for this exceptional dive.
I feel exactly this conflict too. It feels so cruel to tell isolated people that certain sorts of companionship are not OK. But what becomes of society if "friends" require nothing of you...? Thank you for your note, Robin!
The Lil’ Brother concept is I guess an advanced version of tomagotchi.
But this point aside, the inconvenice of living in a community, as you implied, is a feature not a bug.
The question of someone needing you back is interesting to ponder, but turning interaction into something we can make more conveninent like online shopping or food ordering, seeing the negative effect of the “convenience uber alles” mentality on everything it touched, doesn’t seem like it’s gonna end well imo.
Yes--that made me think of Tomagotchi too! Thanks for your comment, Mohamed!
Thank YOU for writing this very interesting piece and starting insightful discussion about this very important topic!
Hey Tom, I really enjoyed your piece on how AI might affect loneliness; it’s an intriguing dive into our modern predicament where, paradoxically, more tech does seem to be making us lonelier even as it offers new avenues for connection. You paint this vivid picture of AI companions being both a potential balm for solitude and a crutch that may leave us more disconnected from one another. It’s wild, isn’t it, to think about how personalised AI could change our social fabric? Yet it also raises important questions about what relationships will look like in the future—if we’re running to machines for comfort, what does that say about our connections with each other? You’ve really got me pondering the balance between embracing innovative tech and retaining the messy, but vital, human interactions that shape our lives. Cheers for the thought-provoking read!
Thanks so much for your comment, Carlos! I agree with you: a big question about AI companions might not be whether they'll work as future friends, but whether we will...
I enjoyed this article! One incredibly anal point is that I don’t think this is what Shakespeare is saying in Sonnet 29 (“Shakespeare portrays loneliness as the distress of noticing one’s exclusion, only to realize that nobody even cares"). The first part of this poem is about the agony of being outcast and envying others, but isn’t primarily about others’ indifference to his suffering.
A much better example would be Auden’s Musée des Beaux Arts, which is I think much more centrally focussed on this idea.
“In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure”
Thanks, Nell! I love this kind of parsing--and thanks for pointing me back to that Auden poem, which I haven't looked at in years. You're definitely right that Shakespeare's sonnet isn't primarily about loneliness. I would argue, though, that he's portraying the experience as I described. Or so it struck me. Maybe we need to ask an LLM to adjudicate ... :)