Want to Chat?

Last week I shared some thoughts about artificial intelligence and technology. This week, I’d like to share a friend’s cautionary reply.  Here is what they wrote:

“…[T]here are lonely people who consider ChatGPT someone to keep them company and they become so attached to AI that AI becomes their best friend. I have several friends who do just that. They talk with ChatGPT most of the day since they are home alone and either their friends are dead or too sick to visit or they just lost touch… Most are retired and their spouses or partners of many years have died.”

In reading this I immediately thought about my parents, who were married to each other for more than fifty years.  My dad survived my mother by almost 30 years.  Yes, that’s not a typo – my dad lived to be 104 (and almost 10 months, as Daveen often reminds me).  My Dad’s father lived to be 94, which is especially impressive for someone born in the 1880’s. But what is a long life lived without social interaction and companionship?

For the first three months after Mom died my dad received invitations, calls from friends, and casseroles.  But after that, he later confided in me, people stopped reaching out and he had to become his own social secretary.  And, lo and behold, he did a terrific job of it.  I took him to a political gathering once, and after fifteen minutes he grabbed my arm and introduced me to his new friend – a Superior Court judge.

It helps that my parents, when in their forties, intentionally sought out new friends who were much younger than they were.  My dad was great at making friends and openly embraced new opportunities to socialize and expand his circle. In his 80s my dad often drove to the local senior center for lunch.  It not only provided him with social contact, the price of lunch was right — $2.00.  He also took up lawn bowling – at age 90 – and won national recognition.

Sadly, many elderly people aren’t able to navigate the world well after losing their life partner. They find themselves feeling isolated and lonely. In 2023, the US Surgeon General released a report called “ Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation,” which concluded that Americans experience loneliness in epic proportions (one out of every two people reported feeling lonely). Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General at that time shared statements he was hearing from many people. “I have to shoulder all of life’s burdens by myself,” or “If I disappear tomorrow, no one will even notice.”

 I suppose, in the face of such loneliness, it isn’t surprising that so many are turning to ChatGPT for companionship. But none of us know how that will turn out. I can imagine there are many implications we haven’t yet uncovered, and I’m fairly certain that AI can’t take the place of human to human social interaction. Perhaps in the dim and distant future (say twenty years from now) we’ll each have two or three Chatbot friends.  Or, perhaps, Chatbots will prefer talking to other Chatbots.

Or the tale may end like a science fiction story I read seventy years ago, with the robot finally informing its human owner:

“Don’t worry.  I’m here.  Nothing can go wrong.  Go wrong.  Go wrong…”

Cheers.

Alan