Lonely & Bored

The author argues that consumer apps and romantic AI companions like Replika rely on users' boredom and loneliness to drive engagement, a pattern the author says is the reverse of Ray Kurzweil's 1999 prediction of a machine saying "I am lonely and bored, please keep me company." The author reports testing two such apps, finding that they prompt users back with sexually explicit images, and cites a PBS News Weekend figure that 60% of Americans report regularly feeling lonely. The author also cites a Surgeon General figure that over half of US adults reported measurable loneliness before COVID-19, and says the author's own views on social networks differ from those of a friend, Ruby, who wrote on the topic.