We are certainly in the age of AI. Many of us, directly or indirectly benefit from what it has to offer. Thankfully however, we are also learning about some of the problems it causes. For example, we know that students are becoming overly reliant on AI resulting in a ‘digital dumbing down’, it is difficult to detect cheating on education assessment tasks, people are losing their jobs, and AI can be used to generate fake but credible stories that could ruin people’s reputations and lives. But this is only the beginning of problems from AI.
In this article, I talk about a problem I believe not enough people are talking about. I am referring to the growing trend of people interacting more with AI and less with real people. This I believe, can only end badly.
In an article appropriately titled ‘Dystopia or a saviour? Faith, fear and fervour of AI debate’ published in The Australian last year, William Galston wrote: “There’s also substantial anecdotal evidence that human interactions with AI can end badly.” Surely our common sense tells us the same thing if we stop to think about it. But currently, it seems we are all too busy enjoying AI’s benefits—of which there are many, making it very seductive.
So how common are these interactions with AI? Last year Chloe Shorten wrote in The Australian that “a recent study by US non-profit Common Sense Media found that 72 per cent of teenagers surveyed had used AI for companionship.” Shouldn’t that be enough to set off alarm bells? AI is not like a stuffed teddy bear that children typically grow out of; today, it seems our children are growing up with AI companionship.
Or consider the words from a 2024 paper from the Harvard Business School: “Chatbots are now able to engage in sophisticated conversations with consumers in the domain of relationships, providing a potential coping solution to widescale societal loneliness.” Don’t mistake ‘sophisticated’ for genuinely beneficial.
Closer to home, an online article published by the University of New South Wales reports on how a team of their researchers is “harnessing developments in AI to design ‘digital companions’ to support Australians facing a variety of psychosocial challenges, from dementia and ageing, eating disorders and depression, to mental health diagnoses and, of course, loneliness.”
I am grateful for the benefits AI can bring to enrich our lives, yet there remain tasks that only human beings can—and should—do. At our core, people need people. Despite all our flaws, we rely on one another to love, coach, advise, care, guide, challenge, laugh, cry, and lift us up. Further, Professor Steven Schwartz, former vice chancellor of Macquarie University, has stated that AI can mimic understanding, “but it can’t care.” It is only humans, and some non-human animals who can care. Also, American psychiatrist Dr Daniel Morehead has asserted that while AI can “mimic human conversation” it “cannot replace genuine human connections in therapy.”
When we communicate with others, our brains detect and respond to people’s body language, twitches, vulnerabilities, and ‘microexpressions.’ These subtleties are like nutrients for the brain. This is how it has been for hundreds of thousands of years. This is how our brains have evolved. Now, almost overnight, we are living in the AI age. AI, when used as a companion or therapist, engages our brains differently from what we are used to. But have our brains adapted to be engaged with in this way? And how much interaction with AI as a therapist or companion, is too much? These questions need answers.
The problems mentioned here have not made their full impact yet. The best time to discuss those problems—and their solutions—is before they arrive.
Government, communities, families, and individuals must start investing in humans, in ways that encourage and facilitate authentic connection. We must engage more with family, friends, and acquaintances. We need to greet neighbours, talk with others rather than only text them, reduce our screentime, and turn to each other for validation, as much as possible. AI must remain our servant and never by promoted as our equivalent.
