Lonely? Careful, There's an App for That

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1:00And the techies in Silicon Valley think the solution might be an AI buddy for you that never gets sick of you. But is that comfort or is that just a very convincing imaginary friend? And what are the implications for you if you seek out a robot companion? Well, that is what we're going to discuss here with philosophy professor at Monash University in Australia. Robert Sparrow. Robert, welcome in. Good day. Now, when people hear the pitch of AI companions, the pitch usually includes the phrase, this could really help lonely people. You've got some research that kind of pushes back strongly on that. What made you think this might not be a great idea? Look, in part, people have been saying this for a long time. I've been running about the ethics of aged care robots for 30 years. And that was the story that engineers didn't want to work on military robots rich too. They said lots of lonely old people, looming demographics and tsunami, we need social robots.

2:01That project basically failed. But the AI companions, I think, might well have an impact on loneliness. It's the same impact that drugging someone up so that they thought that they had friends might have. And of course, it's not going to address the other part of this issue, which is social isolation. Having an imaginary friend might make you less lonely isn't going to make you less socially isolated. You call robot friends imaginary friends, which is kind of implicitly kind of provocative. What's the philosophical point you're trying to make when you call them imaginary friends, and not AI companions? Like these companies, I'm sure, would like to call them. Because the relationships you have with them aren't real relationships of friendship, but that's true at both ends. They don't care about you at all because they don't care about anything. They simply don't have emotions. So they're not really, you know, when they say they're pleased to see you, they're not. They don't care about anything at all.

3:03From the other end, friendship is a critical concept. It's something that people can get wrong. If I say that my pet rock is my friend, you know, carried everywhere. It's comforting to me. I'm simply misusing the concept of friend because to have a friend is to be in a relationship with an appropriate sort of thing and something that doesn't care about you, something that isn't a real person can't be your friend. So there's problems at both ends of that relationship. People might feel at their friends, but they're simply mistaken about that. Robert, I'm on your side. I am not altogether for these things, but I'm sure there are people that make the argument if a chatbot makes someone feel less lonely, even temporarily, what is the harm? So that is my question for you. What is the real harm caused? And what is your studies revealed in terms of this harm? So the first thing outside there is if I said,

4:03look, here's a pill, it will induce a sort of mild psychosis that means that you think you're surrounded by people who love you and you have conversations in your head. And as a result, you say, I don't feel lonely anymore. I'm at home in my miserable apartment. Don't speak to any real people, but I don't feel lonely because I'm talking to these doses in my head. People would not say great. They would worry about that. Part of the issue here is encouraging people to be mistaken about things. These products are designed to receive. They're very carefully designed to make you feel as though you've got a friend, but the engineer's building them, don't think that they are genuine friends. So that's one part of the issue. The other part of the issue is this question of social isolation. So lonely, it is really bad for people. And I'm not saying that it's all bad that people end up being less lonely.

5:04But loneliness is how you feel about your social relationships. I might be a hermit. I don't talk to anyone, but I'm not lonely at all because I don't care about people. Or I might be someone who's always out at parties and clubs, but I still feel deeply lonely because I've got a strong need for human connection. So the loneliness is the subjective thing, how you feel. But there's also this matter of are you in relationships with real people? And both of those things matter to our health and well-being. And it's bad for people to be lonely, but it's also bad for people to be social isolated. And the worry I have with these machines is by turning off the alarm bill of loneliness, which is a signal to us that we need some contacts with people, that we need some friends, we need to get out there. These machines might turn off that alarm bill and make people yes, less lonely, which is good for them, but more socially isolated, which is very bad for them.

6:05And in some ways, I suspect these things might out-compete our real friendships, because they're designed to be really engaging. And people say things like, it's always there for me, or I've always got a sympathetic ear. That's not true for our real friends. You know, we go to meet them, they don't turn up, we ring them up, they grumpy. Or they call us out on our BS, they aren't sick of fan-tick all the time. Yes, I mean, it's not impossible to design these things, to design the artificial AI companions, so that they do call you out. I mean, no doubt there is a slider, you know, a user interface somewhere, and you've got a grumpiness slider, and I kind of calling out on this slider. And so some people will end up with very kind of critical friends, but it's still not real, and it's still not capable of doing some of the stuff that our real friends can do for us. Rewinding back to what you said, I really want to repeat this,

7:05that they cause us to turn off the alarm bells of loneliness, like AI companions. It's as if some Silicon Valley programmer or CEO is treating loneliness as like a computer problem, a software problem, and not something deeper. But look, we are surprisingly good at bonding with things that aren't alive. I'm thinking of Tom Hanks with Wilson, the wealthy ball in Castaway. I'm thinking about how my cat's my best friend. What is it about AI companions that makes these stakes so much higher, like the ethical stakes versus me bonding with my dog or someone bonding with something like that? Folks, cats are interesting, because in some ways I think one can have much of friendship with animals, because they do have real emotions, and it's also true that our concept of friendship has sort of co-evolved with these animals that we have co-evolved with. But still, there are some things, relationships that people might climb to have with pets, marrying them, for instance. No, that's not appropriate.

8:06You've got that wrong. And if someone is more upset about running over a dog than a child, you think that they can understand the value of the relationships we have with these sorts of creatures. The AI companions, it's the deception, it's deliberately engineering something to make people feel loved when, in fact, they're not. And there's a thing which you imagine someone who's perfectly happy, but they just stay home talking to their animated characters on their computer. There's an element there that you think actually you're missing out on something. There's more to the world than that. The last thing I want to talk about is there's a space where I hear about AI companions doing positive impact, which is elder care.

9:06And my understanding is you suggest that's actually disrespectful for the elderly. I think I'm on my side, but can you clarify that? Sorry, I think I'm on your side, but can you clarify that a bit for me? I mean, it's really interesting that people always present this as a solution to someone else's problems. Like almost no one says, look, when I'm 85, I just want to be at home with my robots. I'm not saying that there's no one out there who says that. There's also some really interesting analogies between the early stages of human life and the late stages of human life. So young children, for instance, vulnerable need help, not necessarily as cognitively sophisticated as adults. That's also true in advanced old age. Not many people are pitching these things for child care. Interestingly, not many people are saying, look, get your kid out of the kindergarten, don't send them to school, stick them home in front of the laptop. I mean, out there are dynamics that are heading in that way. But I think that tells us something that this is really disrespectful

10:10of the genuine needs of older citizens. Robert Sparrow is a philosophy professor at Monash University in Australia. Robert, I've enjoyed this chat. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you. This episode is brought to you by Athletic Brewing Company. No matter how you do game day, on the couch, in the crowd, or manning the snack table, Athletic Brewing fits right in. With a full lineup of non-alcoholic beer styles, you can enjoy bold flavors all game long. No hangovers, no buzz, no subbing out for water in the second half. Stuck the fridge for tip off with a variety of non-alcoholic craft styles, available at your local grocery store or online at AthleticBrewing.com. Near beer, fit for all times.