AI friendship won’t cure America’s loneliness crisis

Half of Americans say they are lonely and isolated — and artificial intelligence is stepping into the void.

Sam Altman recently announced that OpenAI will soon provide erotica for lonely adults. Mark Zuckerberg envisions a future in which solitary people enjoy AI friends. According to the Harvard Business Review, the top uses for large language models are therapy and companionship.

Lonely people don’t need better algorithms. We need better friends — and the courage to be one.

It’s easy to see why this is happening. AI is always available, endlessly patient, and unfailingly agreeable. Millions now pour their secrets into silicon confidants, comforted by algorithms that respond with affirmation and tact.

But what masquerades as friendship is, in fact, a dangerous substitute. AI therapy and friendship burrow us deeper into ourselves when what we most need is to reach out to others.

As Jordan Peterson once observed, “Obsessive concern with the self is indistinguishable from misery.” That is the trap of AI companionship.

Hall of mirrors

AI echoes back your concerns, frames its answers around your cues, and never asks anything of you. At times, it may surprise you with information, but the conversation still runs along tracks you have laid. In that sense, every exchange with AI is solipsistic — a hall of mirrors that flatters the self but never challenges it.

It can’t grow with you to become more generous, honorable, just, or patient. Ultimately, every interaction with AI cultivates a narrow self-centeredness that only increases loneliness and unhappiness.

Even when self-reflection is necessary, AI falls short. It cannot read your emotions, adjust its tone, or provide physical comfort. It can’t inspire courage, sit beside you in silence, or offer forgiveness. A chatbot can only mimic what it has never known.

Most damaging of all, it can’t truly empathize. No matter what words it generates, it has never suffered loss, borne responsibility, or accepted love. Deep down, you know it doesn’t really understand you.

With AI, you can talk all you want. But you will never be heard.

Humans need love, not algorithms

Humans are social animals. We long for love and recognition from other humans. The desire for friendship is natural. But people are looking where no real friend can be found.

Aristotle taught that genuine friendship is ordered toward a common good and requires presence, sacrifice, and accountability. Unlike friendships of utility or pleasure — which dissolve when benefit or amusement fades — true friendship endures, because it calls each person to become better than they are.

Today, the word “friend” is often cheapened to a mere social-media connection, making Aristotelian friendship — rooted in virtue and sacrifice — feel almost foreign. Yet it comes alive in ancient texts, which show the heights that true friendship can inspire.

Real friendships are rooted in ideals older than machines and formed through shared struggles and selfless giving.

In Homer’s “Iliad,” Achilles and Patroclus shared an unbreakable bond forged in childhood and through battle. When Patroclus was killed, Achilles’ rage and grief changed the course of the Trojan War and of history. The Bible describes the friendship of Jonathan and David, whose devotion to one another, to their people, and to God transcended ambition and even family ties: “The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David.”

These friendships were not one-sided projections. They were built upon shared experiences and selflessness that artificial intelligence can never offer.

Each time we choose the easy route of AI companionship over the hard reality of human relationships, we render ourselves less available and less able to achieve the true friendship our ancestors enjoyed.

Recovering genuine friendship requires forming people who are capable of being friends. People must be taught how to speak, listen, and seek truth together — something our current educational system has largely forgotten.

Classical education offers a remedy, reviving these habits of human connection by immersing students in the great moral and philosophical conversations of the past. Unlike modern classrooms, where students passively absorb information, classical seminars require them to wrestle together over what matters most: love in Plato’s “Symposium,” restlessness in Augustine’s “Confessions,” loss in Virgil’s “Aeneid,” or reconciliation in Shakespeare’s “King Lear.”

These dialogues force students to listen carefully, speak honestly, and allow truth — not ego — to guide the exchange. They remind us that friendship is not built on convenience but on mutual searching, where each participant must give as well as receive.

Reclaiming humanity

In a world tempted by the frictionless ease of talking to machines, classical education restores human encounters. Seminars cultivate the courage to confront discomfort, admit error, and grapple with ideas that challenge our assumptions — a rehearsal for the moral and social demands of real friendship.

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Photo by Yuichiro Chino via Getty Images

Is classroom practice enough for friendship? No. But it plants the seeds. Habits of conversation, humility, and shared pursuit of truth prepare students to form real friendships through self-sacrifice outside the classroom: to cook for an exhausted co-worker, to answer the late-night call for help, to lovingly tell another he or she is wrong, to simply be present while someone grieves.

It’s difficult to form friendships in the modern world, where people are isolated in their homes, occupied by screens, and vexed by distractions and schedules. Technology tempts us with the illusion of effortless companionship — someone who is always where you are, whenever you want to talk. Like all fantasies, it can be pleasant for a time. But it’s not real.

Real friendships are rooted in ideals older than machines and formed through shared struggles and selfless giving.

Lonely people don’t need better algorithms. We need better friends — and the courage to be one.

Editor’s note: This article was published originally in the American Mind.