Chatbots are helping resolve some users’ sense of loneliness, but what about the sense of touch that is vital to human existence? Computers can do that, too.

Being alone and being lonely and suffering, the emotional pain of loneliness are two different things. You can be alone, by choice, and it can be a time of peaceful reflection, planning, or helping yourself destress from the challenges of our current lives. Being lonely, however, is a decidedly different experience that can affect both your mental and physical health and, as the US Surgeon General has indicated, it is a serious epidemic.

Loneliness may need individual attention if society is to overcome its most ubiquitous problems, such as addiction, inequality, and political animosity. Feelings of social isolation, insignificance, and invisibility have profound impacts on people’s psychological, physiological, and emotional well-being, but their repercussions extend far beyond the immediate circle of acquaintances.

According to research, well-established risk factors for loneliness, such as poor health, single status, living alone, and infrequent social interactions, can help explain age disparities in loneliness. It turns out that some factors are good predictors of loneliness across all ages, whereas others are more age-specific. A study analyzed loneliness by age group in the US (18-89+), exploring how factors linked to age predict it.

When people are young, they experience the greatest rates of loneliness; nevertheless, these rates fall throughout maturity until the very end of life, when they rise again and may even exceed those of young adults. More than 20,000 persons in the United States were surveyed online using the UCLA Loneliness Scale to gain a deeper understanding of loneliness in the country. Most Americans are seen as lonely, according to the findings.

What might explain the difference between the younger lonely and the older lonely, exclusive of their very end of life? Could it be that the circles of family, friendship and group adherence counteract feelings of loneliness or might it be that technology has played an instrumental role in establishing a lonely cohort?

Technology, after all, was supposed to be the impetus for bringing people together in a digital relationship that could provide everything we would normally need to not feel lonely. That, however, may not be the case as technology may have contributed significantly to our new sense of loneliness.

Human beings are, by their biology, social, and social interaction is generally associated with physical presence and touching. Researchers at the Netherlands Institute have revealed the positive effects of consensual contact on a person’s physiological and psychological health through a large-scale study.

If you have ever felt a shoulder rub or an embrace at the end of a long day, you might know what I am talking about. Still unanswered is the question of whether or not physical contact can alleviate emotional distress, and if so, does the source or manner of contact matter? The source may not need to be human or animal, and therein may lie an interesting fillip to our psychological needs.

Experiencing mutual laughter and engaging in ways that are not possible in an online format points to the failure of this type of “friendship.” Again, technology is attempting to rise to the challenge, and we will begin to see new forms of technology to erode that sense of loss of actual physical connection. I write, of course, about haptic technology, where a sense of touch is being incorporated into digital devices. Touch is essential as part of our social armamentarium and can add a needed dimension to text or auditory engagement with others.

To provide an additional layer of physical involvement and to address the stress and anxiety of FOMO, haptics are an area that is being explored. The fear of missing out (FOMO) occurs when one is always worried that other people are enjoying themselves while they aren’t.

When you fear missing out (FOMO), you could feel envious or unhappy with your life. Concern that one’s life is not interesting enough or falling behind others are common symptoms. This can be the fuel that drives the addiction that is now being seen in younger users.

ChatBot Friends

Digital engagement in the form of chatbots would seem to be helpful, but the illusion is that the individual has formed a true connection with an algorithm. Is this the Frankenstein of our digital age? Can a computer algorithm replace real, flesh-and-blood friends? One thing that those who use chatbots extensively believe is that the program provides a positive and comforting interaction.

Sam Altman, the wizard behind much of AI, predicts that in 2025, we will begin to see many more versions of generative AI and chatbots that address the need for a friend. One of the current chatbots available is called Kuki.

Chat with her at Kuki.ai or one of her numerous social channels — Facebook Messenger, Twitch, Telegram, Kik Messenger, or Discord — and “she” may converse with and learn from thousands of people simultaneously. The chatbot provides useful information, but her personality and youthful energy make her more of a friend than a colleague. Five times, she has triumphed in the Loebner Prize Turing Test.

Currently, there are the following chatbots available:

1. OpenAI’s ChatGPT — This language model is well-known for its versatility. It offers alternatives including GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, and its new ability to create configurable “Custom GPTs.” Additionally, it integrates with DALL-E for image production. It's great adaptability for both personal and professional use stems from the fact that users can program these chatbots for particular activities or tones.
2. Google Gemini (formerly Bard) — This sophisticated conversational AI provides responses that are connected to the internet and has a handy “Double-Check” feature that verifies facts using Google Search. It is a formidable substitute for ChatGPT because of its strengths in code-writing, image generation, and integration with other Google services.
3. Anthropic’s Claude is great for long-form text and document analysis because of its context window that has 200,000 tokens and its emphasis on safety. Developed with “Constitutional AI” in mind to follow ethical standards, it is for jobs requiring thorough analysis.
4. ChatSonic—Created with the help of Writesonic, it integrates chat capabilities with an emphasis on content creation. Users can generate images, issue voice commands, and utilize personalized training data.
5. Elon Musk’s Grok (xAI) — which offers real-time internet access and is linked to Twitter (now X) — is the fifth initiative. It is accessible to X Premium+ customers and is known for its funny comments; its purpose is conversational pleasure rather than task-focused work.

Additionally, You, Replika, Jasper Chat, Chatsonic, Poe, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and ChatGPT are some of the ones made available as of this writing.

Replika does, however, offer a lot. Create a personalized chatbot by naming it, describing its role in your life, choosing a personality, dressing it, and defining its speech style. You can interact with your new AI friend like any chatbot after you create it. It gets to know you better as you do this, becoming a virtual best friend. Is this an extension of the film Ex Machina?

Are chatbots the answer to loneliness or will they only exacerbate the separation from live interactions to a digital friendship or life? Will some people become totally lost in this technology to the point that they can no longer function in society as we know it today?

As with anything, good things are never perfect, and within them may lie known or unknown side effects that can be detrimental to our mental health. The future is ripe with promise, but we must also remain vigilant to its potential downside.

When algorithms begin writing or rewriting themselves and function without much human interaction, what can we anticipate and what should we be concerned about now? Altman has not provided the answers, but he has pointed to questions that need to be addressed quickly.

The future is coming at us at a rate we have never seen before. Don't compare it to the horse and buggy and the invention of the car because it is 100 times faster and each day it progresses not by simple bits, but by terabytes.