Can AI Cure Loneliness?
While taking a brief scroll break this morning, the first thing in my feed was a fluffy piece on @ridethenews about a company called Realbotix that touts its life-like AI robots as a possible cure for the epidemic of loneliness. According to the company’s website, “Created to be social, our robots and AI are ideal for tackling North America’s staggering loneliness epidemic, and serve to provide company to the elderly or those isolated for health or geographic reasons.”[1] Aria, the top-of-the-line, pictured here, has a starting price of $175,000 USD. I wasn’t the only reader feeling uncomfortable, even frightened by this specter. The comments in the feed were universally negative and often noted the irony of curing loneliness, which many perceived as the result of technology with more technology. Realbotix robot models can be customized to look like whomever you choose, but the ones on social media could be described as “idealized females.” These so-called companions are being created to be “perfect” physically and technologically.
In her book Robot Souls, Eve Poole, author, speaker, and leadership expert, disseminates the ways that removing errors and perfecting AI programming may pose a real threat to humanity, which could make all of our sci-fi nightmares come true.[2] One approach to ‘protecting’ humans would be legislating and keeping AI ‘inferior’ to humans. Controlling AI seems hopeless, especially given the current political climate and the economic incentives NOT to do so.[3] Poole offers an alternate, seemingly radical suggestion.
We have come to fear AI rightly. As AI grows and becomes more sophisticated so quickly, it outpaces the rate at which ‘controls’ are in place, not unlike how our children eventually grow beyond what we can control. Poole suggested parenting as a good metaphor for framing our relationship with AI as our “best guide for our relationship with AI in the future.”[4] Just as it is frightening to let go of control of our human children, we will be figuring out best practices for letting go of AI in an attempt to put the right stuff in there and then let them go.
The right stuff in AI could be less ‘tech’ programming and more ‘human’ programming. Poole suggests that rather than make AI less human, we should make it even more human by programming it with so-called junk code. Junk code is a programming term for redundant, obfuscating, or unnecessary code. Poole adopts junk code as a metaphor for core traits in humans, which are overlooked when programming AI but could actually represent the human soul.[5] Junk code categories in humans include emotions, having a sixth sense, making mistakes, meaning or purpose, and free will, among others. Far from being problematic, Poole argues that junk code drives humanity to be its best, and we will be able to coexist with AI by figuring out how to overcome the difficulties of programming it into AI. She claims that the junk code of humanity, which we call soul yearns for community and is designed to keep us safe.[6] She proposes it can keep us safe from AI if we only learn to program it. Without it, we may be in grave danger. Ultimately, Poole argues that troublesome junk code in humans is the best part of being human. Even more, “junk code teaches us that the meta-hallmark of the soul is being in community.”[7]
If Poole is correct, then figuring out how to give AI Robots a soul programs a happy ending for the human/AI relationships and could actually be a cure for loneliness. Maybe Realbotix is on to something. The difference would be to intentionally program the robots in the image of people who are made in the image of God. Strangely, that would mean conferring dignity on AI and caring for it (them?).
Unfortunately, the @ridethenews piece did not portray the robots with dignity. They were created to represent an idealized hypersexualized partner for hetero men see Instagram for these pictures. In my judgment (and that of the commenters), the so-called companions appeared to increase the objectification of women, a category of ‘other.’ Othering and the fact that the robots were purchased seems like a recipe to decrease human connection. AI might be an area where Christ-following leaders need to step in and step up involvement rather than turning away in fear and trembling, praying for Jesus to hurry up and come again.
I would like to read more about human/AI relationships. In Robot Souls I learned that we must determine legal status and consider how to interact ethically with AI.
[1] https://www.realbotix.com/
2 Eve Poole, Robot Souls: Programming In Humanity. (Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2024), 194.
3Cecilia Kang and Cade Metz, “Trump Announces $100 Billion A.I. Initiative,” New Your Times, January 22, 2025.
4 Poole, 178.
5 Poole, 120.
6 Poole, 202.
6 Poole, 193.
About the Author
Julie O'Hara
12 responses to “Can AI Cure Loneliness?”
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Hi Julie, I appreciate your thoughts concerning loneliness and AI. Jeff left a comment and video on my page that shows a company that specializes in making sex dolls for $20,000 (this was back in 2018). I also found a more innocent robot called LOVOT, created by a Japanese company, groove X, which I believe trademarked Emotional Robotics. This is a subject that I would like to explore as well.
Before reading your concluding thoughts, I wrote in my journal, “We can’t dismiss something just because we are afraid of it.” I was pleased to read your exhortation to Christ-following leaders to step up involvement rather than ignore it. Do you have any ideas on how we can do this at a grassroots level?
Hi Elysse, Thanks for your question. This was a tough read for me because I have a deep-seated ‘creepy’ feeling about Robots and correspondingly, AI. It makes me uncomfortable to the degree that I have been ‘looking away.’ All of that to say that I was basically exhorting myself. I need to learn and understand and engage this (for me) uncomfortable topic. Most of my work is with pastors/preachers. As a very basic and practical step we could begin teaching them how to use AI ethically for sermon prep etc. It is just a ‘toe-in-the-water’ but can begin to break down hostility against the unknown.
Julie,
It seems that the creepy feeling of robots is like the creepy feeling of clowns. They are supposed to be fun but then tend to just end up a bit creepy.
What do you think might happen if the trend of robot dolls for young men continues? If they become more readily accessible and more widely disseminated? I wonder what it will do to the psychological aspects of these men and society as a whole.
Thank you Julie. You say you’d like to read more about human/AI relationships. That sounds fascinating! It reminds me of Data on Star Trek, and his friends.
Are there any circumstances in which you could envision the use of AI friends? What would we need to watch out for?
Hi Debbie,
In reading the blogs and comments this week it looks like AI is already being used for relationships. For me personally, I cannot imagine it. I feel that it would be a well-constructed ‘lie’ and here is why. Humans are made in the image of God, AI is made in the image of humans. I believe that an element of truth and life will always be missing in AI no matter how sophisticated and life-like we make it. No matter what, the relational connections between humans and AI will only be a substitute.
Hi Julie,
How does Eve Poole’s metaphor of parenting AI influence our understanding of the relationship between humans and AI, and what are the implications of programming AI with “junk code” to make it more human-like?
Hi Shela,
The parenting metaphor helps me understand that humanity has a responsibility to ‘nurture’ that which it has created so that it can contribute to rather than detract from the society in which we place it. I understood Poole to encourage junk-code programming as a means to bringing AI into closer community with humans and therefore make it safer for the long run.
Hi Julie, I’m with you in feeling disturbed by selling robots as a cure for loneliness. I can only see this making the problem worse.
When my kids were little, I remember learning about the importance of skin-to-skin contact and how it promotes bonding and releases oxytocin (the love hormone). I am curious if robot developers are trying to replicate the skin-to-skin bonding in human-human relationships.
For Christians that are praying for Jesus to return quickly (which I am one of them), how do you encourage them to remain present in the world we live in today?
Hi Christy, Thank you for your question. The bottom line for me is that we are Christ’s ambassadors, and God is making his appeal through us. If we separate ourselves from the “world,” we haven’t fulfilled our mission as the church, being the embodied presence of Christ. I consider the arc of God’s interaction with humanity as revealed in the Bible. Humans failed over and over yet. God was willing to join in and be one of us. That inspires me to continue to be ‘in and with’ people and cultures I feel uncomfortable with. That’s my testimony, and I would use some form of it to encourage others.
Hey Julie, I really enjoyed your post. Poole argues “that troublesome junk code in humans is the best part of being human. Even more, ‘junk code teaches us that the meta-hallmark of the soul is being in community.'”
Would giving AI a “soul,” as Poole suggests, truly bridge the gap, or could it risk further blurring the lines between the authentic and the artificial?
Hi Daren, Yes, I do think it would further blur the lines between the authentic and the artificial. No matter how much human “soul” we give to robots, they will never be animated with the Spirit of the living God. For me, that is what truly separates truth from fiction. The benefit I see in using junk code, as described by Poole, is human safety. If AI really could take over and harm humans, maybe programming in some soul could help.
Julie, I’m tagging on to this conversation because this comment really convicted me, “No matter how much human “soul” we give to robots, they will never be animated with the Spirit of the living God.” Since that is 100% true, perhaps those of us walking in the Spirit should take this as a wake-up call. We need to be intentional in going out and connecting with people so that they do not have to connect with robots. Through it, ultimately they can find community and a relationship with God.