That begs a question: would you rather have no friends, or a few AI friends?
No such thing. It's a mechanical parrot that replies with the most likely response given an input.
It's not a person. It's not a friend. It's not going to hold you while you cry. It's not going to invite you to its wedding. It has no independent life or thought or plans. It's not real.
At the same time a dog does not pretend to be a human, isn’t controlled by a corporation, and is a living thing with its own needs.
It also doesn't really have much choice in who it lives with.
Look, I have a pet cat. I love her very much. I'm pretty sure she loves me very much. I grew up with dogs, I loved them very much. I'm pretty sure they loved me very much.
So I get it. I'm not some militant anti-pet-owning person that thinks pet owning is akin to slavery or something
But it's also not a friendship. It's just not. They don't have a choice who brought them home.
We choose our friends, pets don't choose their owners. It's just not the same as friendship and I don't think it's good to treat it like it is
Many pets do have that choice; e.g. semi outdoor cats, non leashed dogs, etc. There are memes about cats choosing their owner too.
Despite the nickname "man's best friend", they are in fact pets, not friends.
But I love to see the AI haters devolve into gatekeeping the idea of “friendship”. The available space to move those goalposts just gets smaller and smaller, doesn’t it?
AI is not capable of being my friend, as it doesn't pass the first, most basic requirement: it isn't a person.
Would I welcome more people into my life as friends? Sure. But while I cherish the friends I have, I certainly don't need more. Not just to "have".
And I sure as hell have no need or desire for the empty "friendship" of spicy auto complete.
We're not talking about a sentient machine like Data from Star Trek, we're so so far from that still
Edit: it's super important to remember that any and all of the big commercially available AI out there are.. commercial. They're owned by companies. Unless you run them on your own hardware someone else is ultimately the owner of your "AI friend".
That should be a huge alarm bell in your head. Corporations are not your friends.
How can you know how far from, close to, or beyond the line we are?
Also, I'm pretty sure Claude understands humans a lot more than Data does.
It doesn't matter, as long as they are fully owned and operated by massive corporations, they aren't friends