Yves here. Perhaps readers will beg to differ, but this argument presented as analysis pre-supposes that happiness depends on other people. IMHO this is fallacious. Other people can constrain happiness, by for instance financial exploitation, physical coercion, emotional abuse, or even conformity pressures. But as I read this piece, it posits that happiness depends on relationships. I don’t buy that. In his landmark book, Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly argued deep satisfaction and optical experiences came about by engagement, often in activities that were challenging enough to require focused attention but not so demanding as to be overwhelming. Csikszentmihaly stated that this frame of mind can be controlled, not just treated as happenstance.
More evidence that contradicts the position of this article is Buddhist monks, who use meditation (particularly compassion meditations) and practicing detachment so as to achieve a state that could be thought of as emotional equipoise, where they seem emotions as transient and do not invest in them.
So I find it particularly disturbing to see these academics posit a questionable theory of happiness and then use it to depict AI inventions beneficial, even if only to a limited degree.
By Anné H. Verhoef, Professor in Philosophy, North-West University and Edmund Terem Ugar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, North-West University. Originally published at The Conversation
Can technology really replace human relationships? As philosophy scholars who focus on human happiness and on artificial intelligence (AI), we tackle this question in a recent paper.
In our study, we address the rise of AI companions, chatbots, and social robots for friendship, advice, emotional support, and even romance.
We argue that AI can reduce loneliness and provide assistance, but it lacks the genuine understanding, emotions, and moral responsibility needed for human flourishing.
Genuine happiness relies on authentic interpersonal connections, but AI is disrupting traditional ideas of friendship and relationships. Replacing these with AI-driven interactions risks eroding well-being and community.
Human Happiness
The study of happiness is a broad field. In our paper, we turn to the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur to address an aspect of happiness that links to authentic human connections, friendships, and community building.
Ricoeur was particularly influential in the field of human capability and how people understand themselves, others and their world. He advanced our understanding of happiness by connecting it to unhappiness and chance, but also by emphasising the human relational nature of happiness. He makes three interrelated claims on what happiness means.
First, happiness reflects the individual’s desire for a fulfilled life and personal agency. Yet, Ricoeur warns that human beings exist within complex social systems that shape and constrain their pursuit of happiness. So, we can’t easily secure happiness through individual effort alone. This leads to the second thread.
Second, happiness is no longer a private aspiration but emerges through giving and receiving. Its fragility lies in its shared character, which builds friendships to dispel loneliness and deepen fulfilment. But this is not just about the bonds we share with those who are close to us.
Ricoeur adds a third thread to include those distant from us. He argues that happiness is linked to an individual’s private pursuits and the role others play in enabling or frustrating them. “Others” includes those with faces – friends and loved ones – and faceless, distant strangers.
Happiness, then, may be located within the self, in intimate relationships, or in relations with the wider community.
Ricoeur’s account of the concept of happiness reflects a well known study that found that strong community ties help people live longer and happier lives.
The study draws on nearly 80 years of data from the lived experiences of 268 students who moved from Harvard University dorms to residential houses in 1938. The research shows that close relationships best predict longevity, health, and life satisfaction. Such ties protect against discontent, and delay physical and cognitive decline. They’re more reliable predictors of well-being and happiness than wealth or status.
However, the rise of digitalisation and AI now complicates who and what may count as “others” in the promotion of our individual happiness.
Robot technology
According to a study on how AI companionship develops, 68% of AI chatbot users perceive these tools as “somewhat” or “fully” humanlike, 90% believe chatbots are intelligent, 78% believe chatbots are empathetic, and 75% believe they’re conscious.
AI is being used to answer questions and probe human interests, shaping a new kind of dialogue in many spheres of life. With it, ideas of friendships are shifting to involve human-technology relations.
Traditionally, the “others” in a person’s life have been human subjects. Emerging scholarship on human-technology relations challenges this assumption. Ranging from sport companions to sexual intimacy, these studies compel us to reconsider what counts as the other.
Technologies like Replika now occupy the role of the “other” in some people’s lives. This human-companion chatbot with the motto “the AI friend to do life with” has over 42 million global users at the time of writing. Replika is designed to foster companionship and friendship among those who feel lonely. Users create an avatar that becomes their digital companion.
Socially disruptive technologies like AI-driven social robots are designs that distort our traditional social norms, relations, and the way we see the world. One reason they’re considered disruptive is that they are unpredictable and continually challenge our worldviews. Historically, technologies were not moral agents. Today, however, they play the roles of moral subjects and objects in our lives.
For example, in Japan the hikikomori phenomenon, a state of human social reclusiveness, is gaining momentum, with over 1.5 million individuals becoming attached to virtual companions instead of other people.
An estimated 3,700 individuals have reportedly applied for marriage certificates through Gatebox with a holograph called Hatsune Miku. One marriage has already been registered. In some religious settings, social robots serve as religious leaders to a community of believers.
These technologies have disrupted traditional concepts such as friendships and relationships, and what it means to contribute towards human well-being and flourishing.
So Can Robots Bring Real Happiness?
In our study we acknowledge that these technologies can foster human flourishing and happiness, but not from the standpoint of Ricoeur’s “others”.
They fail to satisfy the criteria for human otherness. The technologies:
- only mimic the experiences we share with them
- do not act out of their own “will”, and we cannot hold them responsible for any moral or legal action
- do not have stories and experiences of their own.
Social robots, though lacking sentience (the ability to feel pain or pleasure), can elicit meaningful emotional and psychological responses, enhancing human well-being and happiness in ways that resemble traditional human interactions. AI-driven social bots are always available, energetic, patient, adaptive, and responsive to our needs. In this regard, they seem to offer much more to our potential happiness than our best friends and families do.
However, they are social bots and must remain as such. We must not confuse them with what the human others meant to Ricoeur or with what they meant in the Harvard study.
This because the experiences they elicit are not real, and they are not objects of moral considerations (receiving real care, justice, and sympathy). In our view, being an object of moral considerations is a necessary condition in promoting genuine human happiness and well-being.
Agreeing on the point about others as a source of happiness – weird and not healthy view despite the obvious benefits and pleasures of good intimate relationships and the value of being part of communities and groups.
In face to face relationships, everyone changes. Sometimes suddenly and dramatically (Bells Palsey, significant loss of mobility from accident or illness, etc. etc.) On thing chatbots have going for them is not this.
American Auto, a silly American TV show, has an episode I’m which, as part of a bet, two characters introduce the American Auto company’s general counsel to a chatbot with a woman’s name and voice.
It goes as you’d expect until someone in a bad mood leans in and gives a prompt to change voice to Australian male.
The two who introduced the chatbot ask questions like well what did you think when you asked her about her hobbies? Did she seem real when you asked where she grew up? And of course those questions had not been asked. Sharp point, I thought.
In virtual relationships, The Remarkable Life of Ibelin, shows the kids virtual friends noticing something g is off and worrying about him when his in-game behavior – their only contact – changes as his health declines. This happens before he is literally unable to spend as much time online.
I have spent too much time changing chariots back from chariots and admit defeat.
In high school, I had a Psych class; one of the things I remember is talking about ‘inner’ and ‘other-directed’ people.
Lots of equivocation on “human flourishing” and “happiness,” which are quite different things. I suspect that this comes from a mistranslation and Anglicization of Aristotle, which is where this intellectual tradition comes from, as if “eudaimonia” meant “happiness,” which it does not. Greek, Ancient Greek anyway, does not have a word for “happiness,” and what modern Anglosphere people mean by the term is actually part of his “hedone,” which is “pleasure.”
I would say that the main difference between a human relationship and an AI relationship is that the human relationship is not recording every single word that you say and anything that they can observe about you so that they can sell that info to a bunch of advertisers. An AI will always sell you out – always.
Another reminder that Homo Sapiens is a rationalizing animal rather than a rational animal.
That said, if I had married a Hologram the divorce would have been less expensive.
practicing detachment so as to achieve a state that could be thought of as emotional equipoise, where they seem emotions as transient and do not invest in them.
Vulcans (Spock) in Star Trek vs. the totally emotionally volatile Romulans were the ying/yang science fiction way to explore the benefits and dangers of emotions in taking one extreme or the other.
A painter may love their brush but they wouldn’t marry it. For a start, that would be silly and a sign of mental decline. The AI is no different than any other tool. Its the crazy users that assign personalities to it.
Perhaps readers will beg to differ, but this argument presented as analysis pre-supposes that happiness depends on other people. IMHO this is fallacious.
Maybe not happiness, but as Jean Paul Sartre pointed out, hell is other people.
Happiness in human relationships is not just a matter of what you can get from others but what you can give. Arguably, this aspect is even more important and certainly comes back to oneself (in Buddhism, this is causality at work) as a profound sense of happiness and worth.
This aspect in AI, of course, is wholly missing. AI’s are just a simulacrum of human relationships with no heart or substance. Not to mention The Rev Kev’s insight that AI’s are created and deployed primarily to spy on you in one way or another and will doubtless become even more adept at that. There is a strong motivation to make them appear empathetic but the reason for that is sinister at heart.
Perhaps AI could be used to help people learn to become more empathetic? That might be useful because people can learn in many ways and need good examples, at least to get going.
More narcissistic, since the AI is liked by the human because of the ego stroking.
Please remind the Sherlockians that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character. They will likely respond by saying it’s none of your business.
Can technology replace human relationships? NO
It sure seems to when I see a restaurant table with all the patrons on their phones.
If proper nouns are allowed in Scrabble, Mihaly’s last name is worth 32 points.
Thanks Yves for the intro, I could not agree more. I have no expertise in psychology, but this bit from the article is disturbing to me and denies 100s of thousands of years of human evolution and existence. Perhaps the authors could consult experts from other disciplines for a more comprehensive evaluation.
Are human attachments to non-human artificial creations a sign or result of social and/or mental disorders? That would be my question to them. Is modern urban, electronic society contributing to mental disorders?
“Perhaps readers will beg to differ, but this argument presented as analysis pre-supposes that happiness depends on other people. IMHO this is fallacious.”
In all humility maybe there is context here that I didn’t comprehend fully or didn’t understand.
Before I get too exposed with life experience, this is a statement that without context is hard to swallow. And the context may be missing, even if only in my brain. I beg the author to clarify.
People die in solitary confinement. Anthropologically humans are social animals and without other humans people wither and die.
For reasons too long to get into, in my later life I have lived a very solitary existence, with some friends but all too little social contact.
People by and large cannot and do not thrive without other people. Yes, people can be happy for a while in contact with nature and craft and hobby but after a while — based on my own human experience — even a kind word from another human is like a drop of water in the desert.
I say this in all humility. Maybe the author’s experience helps in saying these words, perhaps not knowing all the human-to-human most people have every day. And social media is a mind twisting and destroying substitute.
Large Language Models are artificial friends who aren’t real people. It may be said to be similar to an opiod injection for the disease of solitude. I don’t know how to describe it fully but that will kill people.