Anthropologists tell us that only a handful of human experiences can be found in all human cultures. Among them is the experience of friendship. It might have different expressions in different times and places, but something akin to it seems to appear everywhere.
Surely one of the greatest pains a human can endure is to have no friends – to be outside of every circle of trust, every exchange of confidence, every bond of love.
Review: Artificially Yours: Real Friendship in a World of Chatbots – Valerie Tiberius (Princeton University Press)
Maybe this explains the prevalence of the idea of the mechanical friend. What if we could build machines that replicated the experience of friendship? Would we not then triumph over the horror of friendlessness? Defeat the cruelty that sits adjacent to friendship? Unlock all its benefits and destroy all its iniquities?
Or is the idea of the mechanical friend somehow much sadder or more pathetic than having no friends? Would a significant number of us not pity, even mock or deride, anyone who thought they were friends with a robot, a computer, an algorithm?
