In Irwin Winkler’s proto–cyber thriller, a woman’s most reliable companion is the screen in front of her.
In April, Mark Zuckerberg, as tech billionaires are so fond of doing these days, pontificated at punishing length on a podcast. In the interview, he addressed America’s loneliness epidemic: “The average American has—I think it’s fewer than three friends. And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it’s like 15 friends or something, right?”
Before you’ve had a moment to register the ominous way in which he frames human connection in such bleak economic terms, he offers his solution to the loneliness epidemic: AI friends. Ideally AI friends his company generates.
“It’s like I’m not even me anymore.”
—Angela Bennett, The Net (1995)
