Rose Rimler

And to be fair, ChatGPT is not really built to form relationships.

People have figured out how to use it that way, but other apps are definitely more suited for this.

Like they might offer characters that you can talk to or become friends with or become more than friends with.

You know, maybe for you and me, this isn't that appealing or maybe it even sounds a little silly.

But some of these companies say that what they're doing has a lot of value.

One thing I've heard is that these AI companions can help people feel less lonely.

Which you could imagine being a really big deal because we're always hearing that we're in this epidemic of loneliness.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, we do hear it's like bad for your health, right?

Right.

And that's true.

Yeah.

In fact, loneliness has been linked to dying earlier.

So the pitch might be like, oh, yeah, hey, I can step in here and help with this like societal problem or whatever.

Exactly.

I mean, and I will say it's controversial whether or not we really have a loneliness epidemic.

epidemic that's grown, like it's actually increased over the last few decades.

But we do know that a lot of people are lonely.

There's a big poll from the American Psychiatric Association last year found that about a third of adults in the U.S.