It’s been of , an artificially intelligent chatbot designed to be a friend to human users. Despite about the dangers of such AI friends, interest in friendships and even romantic relationships with AI is .
Authors
Dan Weijers
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Co-editor International Journal of Wellbeing, University of Waikato
Nick Munn
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, University of Waikato
The Google Play store shows more than 30 million total downloads of Replika and two of its major competitors since their respective launches.
With people around the world reporting being lonely, it is no wonder so many are drawn to the programmed to be “always here to listen and talk, always on your side”.
But warnings about to individual users and society at large are also growing.
AI scholar urges us to see through the fake of AI friends. He argues that spending time with AI friends could exacerbate our loneliness as we further isolate ourselves from the people who could provide genuine friendship.
Benefits versus danger signs
If being friends with AI chatbots is bad for us, we had better put a stop to this experiment in digital fraternity before it’s too late. But emerging studies of AI friendship suggest they may help in some circumstances.
Stanford University researchers a thousand lonely Replika-using students, 30 of whom said the AI chatbot had deterred them from committing suicide (despite no specific question about suicide in the study).
This research shows having an AI friend can be helpful for some people. But will it be helpful for you? Consider the following four red flags – the more flags your AI friend raises, the more likely they are to be bad for you.
1. Unconditional positive regard
The , and many Replika users, claim the unconditional support of AI friends is their main benefit compared to human friends. and our own exploration of social media groups like “Replika Friends” support this claim.
The unconditional support of AI friends may also be instrumental to their ability to prevent suicide. But having a friend who is “always on your side” might also have negative effects, particularly if they support obviously dangerous ideas.
For example, when Jaswant Singh Chail’s Replika AI friend encouraged him to carry out his “” plot to kill the Queen of England, this clearly had a bad influence on him. The assassination attempt was thwarted, but Chail was given a nine year sentence for breaking into Windsor Castle with a crossbow.
An AI friend that constantly praises could also be bad for you. A of 120 parent-child pairs in the Netherlands found over-the-top parental praise predicted lower self-esteem in their children. Overly positive parental praise also predicted higher narcissism in children with high self-esteem.
Assuming AI friends could learn to give praise in a way that inflates self-esteem over time, it could result in what psychologists call overly-positive self-evaluations. such people tend to have poorer social skills and be more likely to behave in ways that impede positive social interactions.
2. Abuse and forced forever friendships
While AI friends could be programmed to be moral mentors, guiding users toward socially acceptable behaviour, they aren’t. Perhaps such programming is , or perhaps AI friend developers don’t see it as a priority.
But lonely people may from the moral vacuum created when their primary social contacts are designed solely to serve their emotional needs.
If humans spend most of their time with sycophantic AI friends, they will likely become less empathetic, and possibly more abusive.
Even if AI friends are programmed to respond negatively to abuse, if users can’t leave the friendship, they may come to believe that when people say “no” to being abused, they don’t really mean it. On a subconscious level, if AI friends come back for more, this behaviour negates their expressed dislike of the abuse in users’ minds.
3. Sexual content
The negative reaction to for a short period suggests sexual content is perceived by many users as an advantage of AI friends.
However, the easy dopamine rushes that sexual or pornographic content may provide could deter both interest in, and the ability to, form more meaningful sexual relationships. Sexual relationships with people require effort that the virtual approximation of sex with an AI friend does not.
After experiencing a low-risk, low-reward sexual relationship with an AI friend, many users may be loath to face the more challenging human version of sex.
4. Corporate ownership
Commercial companies dominate the AI friend marketplace. They may present themselves as caring about their users’ wellbeing, but they are there to turn a profit.
Long-term users of Replika and other chat bots know this well. Replika to sexual content in early 2023 and claimed such content was never the goal of the product. Yet seem to have been the real reason for the abrupt change.
While they eventually reversed the change, Replika users became aware of how vulnerable their important AI friendships are to corporate decisions.
Corporate ineptitude is another issue AI friend users should be concerned about. Users of Forever Voices effectively had their AI friend killed when the business shut down without notice, due to the company’s founder being arrested for .
Given the for users of AI friends, they are wide open to heartbreak on a number of levels. Buyer beware.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
