Do you call ChatGPT if you are lonely during the holidays?

The twinkling lights of December have arrived, a time of joy and togetherness. For some, however, the holiday season is overshadowed by loneliness. Has OpenAI timed its new companion feature to a week before Christmas? As technology companies offer an ever-growing number of virtual companionships, ChatGPT was released a new telephone number for calls and messages this week.

The tech ecosystem has long identified an overarching sense of loneliness and responded with multiple virtual solutions commonly referred to as AI companions. These virtual connections come in different shapes and sizes, with a slightly different focus. Answer is a well-known AI-powered chatbot that aims to provide an ’empathetic friend’, with over 10 million subscribers creating their personal companion. Character.ai is a role-playing app that allows users to chat with fictional characters built by themselves or others. This concept is of course not new: previous generations have been manifested in computer games such as The Sims and Second Life or the famous different Japanese versions of a robot. girlfriend.

Large language models and advanced AI capabilities have made virtual companions more realistic and much more personal. Without judgment or personal needs, AI companions mirror individuals’ selves, replacing a relationship with an actual other with a relationship with a projected self, trained in non-transparent content and value system. So far, however, it doesn’t seem to cure loneliness. Critics of these cutting-edge innovations have argued that these chatbots hinder our ability to truly empathize with others, while they have infamously been linked to tragic incidents that embolden us violence for themselves or for others, especially when it comes to vulnerable people young people.

A loneliness epidemic

A new article published in JAMA showed that one-third of American 50- to 80-year-olds felt a lack of companionship by 2024. The study compiled six years of data from the University of Michigan National Poll, showing a return to pre-pandemic levels after a notable increase in feelings of loneliness and social isolation during COVID-19. Loneliness was more common among people who perceived their physical or mental health as fair or poor.

This staggering number, one-third of older adults, is consistent previous studies demonstrating one YOU-shaped curve of loneliness, peaking in young adulthood, dipping in middle age and reemerging in older years. Northwestern researchers recently showed that this pattern is global.

In fact, the rates are so high that the U.S Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy coined ‘an epidemic of loneliness and isolation’ and devoted an advisory report to this public health problem. Loneliness has been linked not only to our mental health, but also to our depression physically also one, with a 29% increased risk of heart disease, 32% increased risk of stroke and 60% increased risk of premature death. The report, which brings together multiple studies, also found that a lack of social connections is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The impact of loneliness also extends to our cognitive health, as evidenced by studies such as recent ones meta-analysis of data from more than 600,000 individuals, showing a significant link between loneliness and dementia, even when other contributing factors were taken into account.

Tackling the loneliness epidemic will require more than just advanced technology. Real-life social networks and social interactions are rapidly declining. Followed for almost two decades, studies showed that the average time individuals spend with friends fell from 30 hours per month in 2003 to just 10 hours 17 years later. For those aged 15 to 24, time with friends has decreased by almost 70%, with COVID-19 exacerbating the trend. I find that relationships with AI-powered chatbots are ultimately just an extended relationship with yourself. A true relationship requires that we give our attention to another living soul.