Whoever is looking checking the sentiment about society’s current feelings about artificial intelligence, it would be good to check the walls of the Modern York subway. This fall, alongside posters promoting everything from dating apps to Skechers, a fresh product debuted: Friend. The ads were straightforward, telling commuters that a “friend” was someone who “listens, responds and supports you” alongside an image of a white AI companion necklace floating on a similarly white background.
It was the perfect canvas for graffiti. “If you buy this, I will laugh at you in public.” “Warning: AI Surveillance.” “Everyone is lonely. Find real friends.” “AI error.” These are just the blurry ads I noticed on my daily trips from Brooklyn to Manhattan. There were so many of them that this happened meme. The reaction to the advertising campaign, which the company’s founder said cost just under $1 million, was so raucous that it boiled over. discussed by The New York Times..
People have always vilified Modern York City’s subway ads in every possible way, but what happened to Friends’ ads has caused deep concern about artificial intelligence. Even as some praise its possibilities (drug discovery) and others decry its consequences (environmental impact, job losses), the suggestion that a killer AI app could be a cure for loneliness seemed hit a nerve.
A real nerve surrounded by flesh.
“What is particularly striking is that these [Silicon Valley] “Leaders are actively and openly expressing their desire for AI products to replace human relationships, completely overlooking the role that their own companies – or their competitors – may have played in fueling the loneliness crisis the country faces today,” Lizzie Irwin, a political communications specialist at the Center for Humane Technology, tells me in an email. “They sold us connection through screens while destroying face-to-face community, and now they are selling AI companions as a solution to the isolation they helped create.”
Social media started as a place where weirdos and people with niche interests could find each other. By the early 2000s, platforms like TikTok and Instagram had become places to connect with influencers and creators who were selling you stuff, and less so with real-world connections. Nevertheless, these platforms have educated users – that is you! – how to transfer emotional work to digital tools. (Why call your college friend when you can just touch the heart on their post and save some time?) Thanks to AI, people don’t even have to put in the effort to make friends. And maintaining relationships with bots is much easier than with real people.
“ChatGPT doesn’t leave laundry on the floor,” says Melanie Green, a communications professor at the University at Buffalo who has been studying people’s relationships with the media for years. What’s happening now reminds her of her research in this field in the early days of the Internet. Back then, people met and formed deep connections with others almost exclusively through chat. Communication via computer enabled them to create “hyperpersonal“relationships where they were able to fill whatever they couldn’t infer from the conversation with positive qualities. Like when you assume that the Instagram stalker who has a crush on you must like the same videos as you because they seem great.