Have You Talked To A Computer Lately?

Mark Zuckerberg thinks he has the answer to cure your loneliness. According to the Independent, Mark (creator of Facebook now known as Meta) was on a podcast with Dwarkesh Patel when he said he thought his company could cure all of that. The article states, “Zuckerberg suggested his company’s increasingly integrated AI assistants and chatbots could help Americans make up for the friends they wish they had in their lives.” You read that right, a computer is now your new best friend. Mark said on the podcast, “The average American has fewer than three friends,” he said. “The average person has demand for meaningfully more, I think it’s like 15 friends or something.”

He is not wrong in that respect. We are hurting as Americans when it comes to our relationships. A recent survey done by the American Psychiatric Association discovered that one in three Americans feel lonely every week with as much as 10% feeling lonely every single day. So how does Mark think that Meta with AI (artificial intelligence) can solve this for us? It is programmed to get to know you personally. The more you interact back and forth with AI the more it can relate and respond catering to you specifically. “I think as the personalization loop kicks in and the AI just starts to get to know you better and better, I think that will just be really compelling …”

Now he does throw out there that he knows this will not completely replace actual human socializing: “There’s a lot of questions that people ask of stuff, like, ‘Okay, is this going to replace in-person connections or real life connections?’” he continued. “My default is that the answer to that is probably no.” But because human interaction is clearly not working (based on how many people feel alone) he says, “but the reality is that people just don’t have the connections and they feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like.”

Mark also realizes that hearing this probably sounds strange and wrong to many people. Reading about a computer being our best friend just doesn't sound right on so many levels. How could this possibly be viewed as normal? He accepts that but believes our view on this will change and will be more accepting of it over time: “we will find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why that is valuable and why the people who are doing these things, why they are rational for doing it and how it is adding value for their lives.” In some ways I agree with him. Our reliance on computers has increased exponentially more than our grandparents could have ever imagined. It would not surprise me in the least if grandkids of my generation view it as normal to befriend an AI program.

But while this may be a future possibility, that will never solve the loneliness problems we have in our culture. What Mark is missing is why we need relationships to begin with. He is missing the fact of  how we were made by God and about why He made us the way He did. Yes we are made to relate. This is why we feel lonely at times. We need other people. This is how God created us. A lion out in Africa does not feel alone because he is not made in God’s image. But we are. In the Trinity you have perfect fellowship and communion. And being made after His image we can and need to relate to others. This is also why God created marriage, family, societies and the church! Knowing how he made us He knew we would need to socialize.

Yet even beyond that, where Mark misses the point, is that we were made to relate to other people, not machines. So while people in the future may relate to computers, that will not solve any problems they have inside. No matter how sophisticated and human-like the computers get, they will never be able to solve our loneliness because they are still not human! We were made in the image of a living being to relate to other living beings. And computers are not that!

Nevertheless it will still not matter even beyond that, because there is even a more important reason we were created to relate: to be able to relate to God Himself! The whole point of us existing and God doing everything He does is to relate to His people. That is the main reason He created us in His image. It is why marriage, families and church exist. It is why Jesus came to earth, died and rose again. It is the reason that He adopts us as children and is creating a people for Himself.  “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. [10] Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:9–10) And no computer will ever fill that need that we have to relate with our Creator. No matter how human-like a computer gets, it will never replace God Himself. And that is who we need to relate with most of all to not feel lonely.

It is interesting that in that same survey by the APA, they asked people if they thought technology fosters meaningful relationships? The responses were split. 54% said yes, 46% no. And why can’t we be sure if it does or not? Because our heart is not fully filled until we relate with God Himself. How could we possibly think a computer could ever replace that? “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in You.” Augustine