Over dinner in Brooklyn a few weeks ago a writer friend told me he had asked ChatGPT to critique his manuscript. Had I tried it? No, I said, I’m not interested in what it would say about my work, or anything else for that matter.
“I know what you’re saying, but the feedback is actually quite useful and intelligent. Let me show you,” he said. As I read the comments, I started to laugh. I could see why he liked the feedback; ChatGPT lauded him for the magisterial elegance of his prose and the sophistication of his plotting. Even its suggestions of what problems he may need to address were couched in fawning praise. Who would want or trust this advice?
I thought of my friend and his flattering little fake editor after reading Mark Zuckerberg’s unsettling remarks about how Meta plans to make use of artificial intelligence to simulate friendships. “The average American has, I think, it’s fewer than three friends,” Zuckerberg said recently following the launch of a new iteration of the Meta AI app that is designed to be a more socially interactive experience. “And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.” This follows an update in OpenAI’s ChatGPT programme that disturbed users by being overly obsequious, leading the company to apologise: “Sycophantic interactions can be uncomfortable, unsettling, and cause distress. We fell short and are working on getting it right.” It is difficult to be assured by an apology for sycophantism that, though ostensibly delivered by an actual human, remains this ingratiating and pandering.
The sycophantism is also why AI can never approximate the value of a true friend. Support and encouragement are crucial parts of friendship, yes, but not blind acceptance. Part of why I am able to survive is my absolute knowledge that there are some people in my life who would forgive and love me no matter what happened. But my friends wouldn’t forgive me in the blanket, cosseting sense AI “friends” would. They would forgive me precisely because they know me specifically, and all of the things I have done and that have been done to me. They would also, not incidentally, forgive me because of what I give to them.
My friendships are the infrastructure of my life. I had already wanted to live in New York when I met Daniel, but meeting him made the uncertain breach of moving from London to the US – away from everything familiar – feel possible. I was on a three-month trip to New York when Daniel and I matched on Tinder. We went on a few dates before it became clear we weren’t a romantic match, but found that we wished to spend pretty much all of our time together regardless. Daniel is easily the funniest person I’ve ever met, relentlessly good-natured, reads and thinks with manic brilliance, and loves being alive to a degree that can seem like a cruel joke to an average, moderately depressed person like me. He also, quite unthinkingly, would do anything for his friends without complaint. Within weeks of meeting him, I had a medical procedure that left me unable to stand or lift things; I needed to move out of the apartment I was subletting, so Daniel came over and packed up all my belongings while I lay on the couch, chattering happily as he did so.
We now live about 90 seconds away from each other in Brooklyn. When we convene on the unlovely junction corner outside the McDonald’s and opposite the cart selling inedible hotdogs, he likes to stretch out his arms as if taking in his kingdom, yelping, “What could be better than this!” He makes everything better, not just because of the pleasure his company provides me with, but also in the added dimension he has given my entire world. I can see things through a Daniel lens now.
Part of what makes my friendships so wonderful is that they are surprising – they are not affirmative of my experiences and beliefs. The night after I was broken up with by somebody I cared for very much, my friend Colin offered to come over to my place to distract me. We watched the Oscars and drank wine and every so often I would start crying again. “Colin,” I said to him, “do you ever get this feeling that I get, when you’re alone in bed at night and your mind is racing and you think about how completely alone you are and you’re just struck by this terrible, physical terror?”
“Hmm,” he replied. “No, I can’t say I ever do experience that.” This not only made me laugh but also made me feel real joy that someone could be so different from me, that the imprisonments of my internal life, which feel so inescapable, are not universal. This to me is friendship: not just validation, not just distraction, but intimate exposure to a humanity which so magically diverges from my own.
People tend to find you a little pathetic when you acknowledge building your life around such relationships, instead of a career or children or a spouse. But Zuckerberg is correct about the unmet desire for friendship. Because I have intentionally built my life around them, and because I am lucky, I have no need for more friends. Many people I speak to, though, particularly those who prioritised other bonds earlier in their life, would love to have more friends than they do. That need won’t be assuaged by the introduction of whatever pale facsimile of friendship that AI may offer. Who would want a friend that can’t shout with joy when they lay eyes on you? For whom pleasure and revelation and surprise are only concepts? The friendships that have defined my life have taught me this: a friend you can’t give back to is not a friend at all.
[See also: When David Tennant met Gordon Brown]
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This article appears in the 04 Jun 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The Housing Trap