> AI can be just as good as talking to a friend when you don’t have one
This is not true, and it's not even wrong. You almost cannot argue with such a statement without being ridiculous. The best I can say is: natural language synthesis is not a substitute for friends.
If we are debating these things, it's evidence we adopted LLMs with far too little forethought.
I mean, on a technicality, you could say "my friend synthesizes plausible language, this can do it, too. So it can substitute a little bit!" but at that point I'm pretty sure we're not discussing friendship in its essence, and the (emotional, physical, social, etc) support that comes with it.
This is not true, and it's not even wrong. You almost cannot argue with such a statement without being ridiculous. The best I can say is: natural language synthesis is not a substitute for friends.
If we are debating these things, it's evidence we adopted LLMs with far too little forethought.
I mean, on a technicality, you could say "my friend synthesizes plausible language, this can do it, too. So it can substitute a little bit!" but at that point I'm pretty sure we're not discussing friendship in its essence, and the (emotional, physical, social, etc) support that comes with it.