The article is laudably nuanced but in the end a bit all over the place. The worst types of loneliness are, is it points out, are usually reserved for the elderly; who also dominate suicide stats in many places. If AIs help them make their lives more tolerable, that’s a clear win. As for the folks with a choice, the prevalence of AI companions will likely be directly proportional to the quality of choices available. As often with tech in general, when it steps in to fill a societal void, it’s up to the wider society to make things better.
I agree. My take is, with tech and the social realm, it tends to provide watered down alternatives that distills the social fabric into a more sparsely connected graph. It's not absolutely bad as there can be good that comes about it, but in general it re-engineers the incentives to connect.
Meetup.com (Luma, etc): replaces the need for existing heavily maintained communities of friends and family in your location with siloed random encounters. However, it shortens the path to meeting people that share niche interests.
Dating apps: replaces the need for men to spontaneously approach women they meet in their daily life or in social/family circles (even bars) with a heavily idealized profile centered around physical and emotional attractiveness. They are not only dominated by men, but they typically only disproportionally benefit a small % of those men.
Facebook: you can keep in touch with the lives of more people at scale, but it reduces the incentive to catch up in person with the people you actually care about. This can lead to genuine in person connections being replaced with a feed of people you really don't know.
