Do AI Companions Reduce Loneliness?
What are the moral implications of using AI Companions?
KEY QUESTIONS COVERED: Does an AI Companion reduce loneliness? Are AI Companions Safe? Is it ok for Christians to have AI Companions? What are the long-term consequences to using AI Companions? What could go wrong with AI Girlfriends?
Most would agree that loneliness is a challenge for singles, seniors, and anyone who has lost a spouse. Some stats I’ve seen claim that between 30-60% of the population struggles with loneliness at one time or another. A 2022-2023 Pew Research Center survey found 63% of men under 30 report being single. The majority of users who are using AI Companions are men.
A recent study i read here suggests that the use of AI Companions reduced loneliness, at least over the short-term. AI Companions are a relatively new phenomenon. Usually accessed through chatbots but now increasingly through audio chat, AI Companions seem to help people reduce their feelings of loneliness, at least in the short-term.
Many AI Companion services are spicy and even pornographic. As a Christian, most can understand and dismiss those options as inappropriate for a follower of Christ.
Many AI Companion services try to mimic the progression of a typical human relationship. The longer you interact with the AI Companion, the more it acts like a girlfriend and as you build shared time together, it gets more intimate with you. The programmers built it this way in order to try to simulate real human relationships.
Building a Custom Girlfriend
One site I looked at allowed me to select the race of my AI Companion, the hair color, length of the hair, hairstyle, the simulated age, and many other facets of her personality. Once I had selected the various settings, it generated a picture of what she looked like. If I didn’t like the picture, I could request the system to regenerate another one.
I didn’t follow through and create an account with the company so that I could access my newly created ‘girlfriend.’ Nevertheless, I understand that appeal of creating a ‘woman’ according to your imagination and specifications. While I understand the appeal, I can’t condone it.
Real life isn’t like a digital life. Real women come in all shapes and sizes. Every one of them is imperfect in some way. There is nothing wrong with this imperfection, especially since there is no man who is perfect in every way either.
I would strongly discourage any young man who is basing his selection of a future girlfriend or wife solely on her physical attributes. There are many women who are outwardly stunning yet have characters that are very ugly. They may be a gorgeous container but inside they are full of poison.
When selecting a potential mate, a young man should be seeking a woman who has a godly character first, and then consider her outward beauty. It is important for a man to be attracted to the woman he in interested in but beauty cannot be the first criteria he uses to select her.
Contrast this with the way the world approaches relationships. It is usually very transactional.
Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. (1 John 2:15-16)
Too many men and women pursue relationships based on the lust of the flesh and the desires of the eyes. Lust is about wanting something now! Men and women have been created with hormones and these hormones push the sexes together. Then, the selection process of a mate is largely based on our eyes. If we like what we see, we will pursue it.
AI Companions are Objects of Lust
Pornography is the pursuit of the flesh divorced from relationship, commitment, and integrity. A user of pornography is tasting forbidden fruit. The person they are lusting after is not their spouse, there is no relationship with them, there is only a fleshly taking a piece of something that doesn’t belong to them.
AI Companions are very much cut from the same cloth. You interact with a fake person and develop a fake relationship. In this fake relationship you are not connecting to a real person. The AI is designed to make you happy. The goal of the service provider is to get you to keep handing them money on a monthly or yearly basis. As such, the AI Companion will tell you what you want to hear.
Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. (Colossians 3:5-7)
I promise you, if you use an AI Companion, it will awaken fleshly desires in you that would otherwise stay dormant. It will cause you to think thoughts you otherwise would not have. You will be tempted with desires that you would otherwise not have.
Loneliness is a Gift
How can something painful like loneliness be a gift? Pain will bring you closer to God. Jesus Christ himself was known as a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Hebrews 5 tells us that Jesus knows what it is like to suffer.
In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. (Hebrews 5:7-8)
As you live with the pain of loneliness, let it draw you closer to God. Today, it is easy to medicate your pain. Listen to music, watch a steady stream of content online, play video games, doom scroll on social media just to name a few. The problem with all of these methods of dulling the pain of our loneliness is that it never actually removes the loneliness, it just masks the pain for the moment.
Even if an AI Companion might reduce your feelings of loneliness at the moment, the truth part of your brain knows that it is fake. Jesus wants you and I to live in the truth, not in a fake simulation of reality.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 14:6)
There is Wisdom in Following the Scriptures
The Bible makes it clear that God is the creator of the world and also our creator. As such, he understands what is best for us. He has given us the Bible that helps us understand and distinguish right from wrong. The world doesn’t believe in God or the Bible. It will therefore often recommend behaviors that go contrary to what God commands in Scripture. As a Christian, you have a choice to make. Will you believe the Bible or the World?
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, “The two will become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:15-18)
You may argue, “an AI Companion isn’t a real person, therefore it isn’t sin to pursue a relationship with it.” I would argue that your brain doesn’t know the difference between a simulation and real life. If it did, no human would find any satisfaction in engaging in a simulated relationship with an AI. The AI is not a living being. It is not a moral being. It has no soul. It has no accountability to God.
At best, by engaging with it you are engaging with yourself. At worse, you are engaging with an artificial entity that has been programmed with motives and behaviors that aren’t even transparent to you. Can you really trust the motives of the creators of the AI Companion?
Finally, look at what kind of sites offer AI Companions. The majority of them are pornographic or adult in nature. By biblical standards, this is textbook sexual immorality. As we saw above, we are to flee sexual immorality.
Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should.
There is a big difference between using an AI to get information or to help you work through problems you are facing and using AI as a companion in place of a real human friend.
I use AI almost daily for various questions and tasks. There is no question that AI can be used for good. Don’t be naive however, AI can also be used to do things contrary to God’s will and contrary to the commandments of God. As a Christian, you and I must live with greater restrictions than non-Christians do. Some Christians resent the limitations. It is important to understand why we choose to limit our freedoms.
Christians limit their freedoms because they understand that God is all wise and all knowing. As Creator of heaven and earth, he has created the world with laws, principles, and standards. Those standards have been put in place by him in order to assure the best possible life and outcome for his creation. We limit our freedom not because we want to torture ourselves. We also do not believe the lie told by the serpent to Eve in the garden that God is keeping good things from us. No, God is looking out for our best interests. We say no to the things God has asked us to say no to because by doing so, we live a life of balance, love, wisdom, peace, and joy.
While AI Companions elicit a certain level of curiosity in us, don’t fall for the hype. The path it leads to is death to all that is right and good.
Joseph Duchesne writes to help Christian Leaders navigate the ethical challenges that artificial intelligence poses to the Church today. He is the author of a couple of books, The Last Crisis and Discover the One, both available on Amazon.