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   CONSPRCY      How big is your tinfoil hat?      2,445 messages   

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   Message 1,379 of 2,445   
   Mike Powell to All   
   Zuckerberg wants everyone   
   13 May 25 11:08:00   
   
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   Mark Zuckerberg wants everyone to have AI friends, but I think he's missing   
   the point of AI, and the point of friendship   
      
   Date:   
   Tue, 13 May 2025 02:00:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   Mark Zuckerberg pitches AI as friendship supplement.   
      
   FULL STORY   
   ======================================================================   
      
   Friendships are a vital part of most people's lives. They can be complicated   
   and messy, but a good friendship is worth it, since, as Aristotle said,   
   "without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods."    
      
   Mark Zuckerberg has a potential solution for those seeking to build new   
   friendships: building new friends using AI. Thats only a slight rewording of   
   the viewpoint the Meta CEO is famous for, among other things, popularizing    
   the term "friending" as a verb. With caveats about the ways human friendships   
   offer things no AI currently can, Zuckerberg explained on a podcast hosted by   
   Dwarkesh Patel that people like to engage with AI chatbots like Meta AI about   
   their personal lives.    
      
   And since most Americans have far fewer friends than they'd like, there's   
   space for AI as an alternative. "As the personalization loop kicks in and the   
   AI starts to get to know you better and better, that will just be really   
   compelling," Zuckerberg said.    
      
   But compelling conversation doesn't mean real friendship. AI isnt your    
   friend. It cant be. And the more we try to make it one, the more we end up   
   misunderstanding both AI and actual friendship. AI is a tool. An amazing,   
   occasionally dazzling, often frustrating tool, but a tool no different than   
   your text message autocomplete or your handy Swiss Army knife. It's designed   
   to assist you and make your life easier.    
      
   Its not a being. It has no inner monologue. Its all surface and syntax. A   
   robotic parrot that reads the internet instead of mimicking your    
   catchphrases. Mimicry and scripted empathy are not real connections. They're   
   just performance without sentience.    
      
   Real friendship is not just about someone helping you all the time,   
   selflessly, without ever asking for something in return. If you text your   
   friend and they respond based on a probability matrix, they're not really   
   being your friend. While I love a clean UI as much as the next person, I dont   
   confuse it with love.    
      
   At best, an AI friend is a pet. But not even a warm, wiggly dog or a   
   judgmental cat. More like a beta fish or a Tamagotchi. A reactive presence    
   you can project feelings onto. Its always there, sure. But it doesnt care   
   about you. And deep down, you know it.   
      
   AI Therapy    
      
   Meanwhile, on another podcast with Ben Thompson, Zuckerberg suggested that   
   even if you dont have a human therapist, you should at least have an AI.   
   Therapy is expensive, and theres a mental health crisis with more demand than   
   supply. If an AI chatbot can step in and offer comfort to someone whos   
   struggling, it's hard to argue that's a bad thing. And it's not a bad idea in   
   isolation, but the details can be tricky.    
      
   While some chatbot-based wellness apps have shown promise, theyre only   
   necessary because of the enormous resource gap in providing mental health   
   services. After all, a trained therapist does more than rely on your words or   
   big, obvious emotional tone. They pick up on the unsaid. They recognize when    
   a smile hides your spiral. They make judgment calls that algorithms cant.    
      
   Most importantly, theyre bound by ethics in a way no program can match.    
   Theyre licensed. No matter how stringent an AI's rules are now, all it takes   
   is a change in programming for them to upload your emotional baggage to a   
   server farm. That's before mentioning the irony of a social media company   
   wanting to offer mental health services when their products are often linked   
   to worsening teen mental health and a digital addiction that can isolate   
   people from actual friends.    
      
   I talk to AI tools every day. I think AI can be very useful. I think my   
   automatic coffeemaker can be very useful too, even if I'm more likely to be   
   yelling at it to go faster than to bare my soul to it. And AI can support   
   therapists, enhance education, and offer customer service at 3 a.m. without   
   the usual hold music. But its not a surrogate for human connection.    
      
   We're not at a point where I fear everyone will retreat from messy,   
   inconvenient, flawed human relationships and opt for the sanitized,    
   low-stakes comfort of a chatbot who always agrees with us. But that doesn't   
   mean it's something to look forward to. You can't scale friendship, and you   
   shouldn't encourage people to choose software over doing the work of real   
   friendship. An AI will treat you just like it treats everyone, and, as   
   Aristotle also said, "A friend to all is a friend to none."   
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/mark-zuckerberg-wa   
   nts-everyone-to-have-ai-friends-but-i-think-hes-missing-the-point-of-ai-and-th   
   e-point-of-friendship   
      
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