With friends like these...

As if Trump destroying the economy and democracy weren't enough, coming along for the ride to help things along is AI, which Musk and the other multi-billionaire boys club tech bros (Thiel, Andreessen, Zuck, Bezos et al.) just dying to replace any and all way, shapes, and forms of human endeavor with AI. 

Which is going to be oh, so great for those who own the AI engines and/or are exploiters of the technology, busy figuring out how they're going to switch from having to pay living, breathing sentient employees - who bitch, and procrastinate, and make demands, and take paternity leave - to deploying AI and robotics to write the code, write the proposals, generate the copy, whip up the meal, serve the diners, make the engineering plans, run the numbers, sue the bastards, design the products, manage the projects, haul the shipments, drive the Ubers, make the diagnoses, treat the patients, and everything else that humans presently do. 

So AI ain't going to be so great for the millions of people who actually need jobs. Oh, there's some vague promise of having all that free time. But all that free time compensated for how? Billionaire boy tech bros don't seem all that keen on paying taxes to keep a bunch of loafers in clover. And, assuming that we're paid so that we can keep consuming and become the me's we were meant to be, what are we supposed to do with all that glorious free time? Have ChatGPT write poems for us? Have a robot walk the dog? (Why not just get a robot dog, while you're at it? Nothing to pick up after.) 

Anyone who's seen anything written by bot knows from the wooden prose that results that AI ain't quite there yet. (Not that plenty of people haven't written wooden prose on their own.) Anyone's who's lazily relied on Google AI Search for their first pass at finding some info out can attest to the fact that plenty of times what comes up is erroeneous. And we've all read about autonomous vehicles that haven't quite figured out how to make a left turn getting into an accident.

But when AI comes - and "they" (the billionaire boy tech bros) want it to come big, come now, and come unregulated - won't it be grand? 

I sure wish "they'd" spend more time worrying about the practical and ethical implications of AI rather than just fool rush into it. (And destroying the planet while they're at it. AI is an amazingly greedy consumer of energy.)

Well, optimistically/naively assuming that "they'll" figure out how to take care of the huddled masses, will it really grant us more quality time to spend with friends and family?

Fuggedaboudit!

At least if it comes to spending quality time with friends of the blood, sweat, and tears variety. 

Mark Zuckerberg does want us to lave loads of friends. But there's a slight catch:

He sees a world where Americans will use AI chatbots across the Meta universe to build these AI friendships.

"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," Zuckerberg said on Dwarkeh Patel's podcast. "One thing, just from working in social media for a long time, is the average American has fewer than three friends, [people] they consider friends, and the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's like 15 friends."

Zuckerberg insists that the average person wants "more connectivity," a more meaningful connection than they have. (Source: Yahoo Tech)

I know I've written about it in the past, and I really can't come up with any novel ways to express it - maybe I should try ChatGPT? - but I really don't think that someone can have a meaningful connection with an AI. And if they do, well, that's just plain sucky and sad. 

That being said, Zuckerberg is cognizant of the fact that the idea of AI companionship is still super green in society.

"Is this going to replace in-person connections or real life connections, and my default is that the answer to that is probably no," he says. "I think there are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is people don't have the connection and they feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like."

In my human experience, whoever and wherever you are, however intro- or extraverted you may be - the majority of people hunger for human connection. We may not want or need 15 friends, but most of us want someone to grab lunch and a good old-fashioned gossip with, someone who smiles when they see us, someone who'll give us a hug. We want the occasional catch-up phone call. The no-talk walk with someone at our side. The colleague who knows just what that eye-roll means. 

We get these connections from our families and friends, from school, from work, from church, from where we live. And I know that some people don't have all that much connection, and really want more.

But JFC, there are lots of ways to make connections without resorting to AI ones. If you don't have family and friends, no school, no work, no church, no neighbors, there are still things you can do. Like volunteer. Or go to a concert or lecture and start chatting (not ChatGPT-ing) with the solo person you're sitting next to. Join a book club. Play softball. Stroll around someplace where there are people. Stuff envelopes for a campaign. Get out and play Pokemon Go, for chrissakes. 

Take an online course. Play an online game. Join an online bookclub. 

One of the beauties of the Internet is that you can make connections (and reconnections) with human beings anywhere. Someone who shares your interests, your viewpoint, your whatever. 

Sure, there are pitfalls: exploiters, bad guys, sick puppies who'll take advantage of the lonely. 

But I really hate the thought of people relying on non-people for connection. It is just so sad. 

Zuckerberg says there's a stigma around AI companionship, and his hope is that, over time, people will "find the vocabulary as a society to articulate why it is valuable and why the people that are doing these things are rational about doing it and how it's adding value to their lives."

Sure, it's "adding value," but I think most people would be a lot happier if they tried a little human-ness first. 

Maybe I'm just too old for this stuff, but I really don't want to live in this world where most everyone has 15 "friends" who aren't really human.