Why you should reject Zuck's chatbots
As the tech industry continues to invent new ways of monetizing human relationships, it may be helpful to compare the various types of connection. Ranked from best to worst:
In-person, human to human: best
Via screen, human to human: helpful, though not as good as in-person
Via screen, human to AI: acceptable for certain functional tasks, otherwise potentially dangerous
I suppose the widespread deployment of social robots, as embodied AI models, will bring about another category…
In-person, human to AI: likely creepy
…which I’d rank there at the bottom of the list. (At least when an AI is restricted to a screen it can’t walk around your home and, say, watch you when you’re sleeping.)
My point is that in-person connection is the best, most genuine way to relate to someone else. We’re social creatures and sociality is embodied. Catching up with someone via a screen – a videochat, for example, or even a lower-bandwidth text or email – can be meaningful and restorative, but it’s not the same as being there in person.
Mark Zuckerberg is someone who knows the value of physical presence. When he was summoned by the current occupant to the inauguration, Zuck demonstrated his support by showing up in person. Since then, Zuck has reportedly visited the White House in person three times to beg for favors. (It clearly didn’t work, as Zuck has since had to testify in the Facebook antitrust trial.)
For all his devotion to in-person relationship building – at least with a wannabe dictator – Zuck is strangely keen on the idea that the rest of humanity should connect with AI. Facebook/Meta announced a new mobile app this week offering more “social” AI (as well as exciting new levels of surveillance, as the chatbot is always tracking what you say to it).
In a podcast interview, Zuck made clear that his aim isn’t merely to create some kind of AI-enabled search engine. No, he wants to put people in relationship with a chatbot. As if it’s a friend. Samantha Cole puts it well in 404 Media: Mark Zuckerberg Thinks You Don't Have Enough Friends and His Chatbots Are the Answer (May 1, 2025).
As I wrote above, human-to-AI connections can be helpful for some functional tasks. (My column last week mentioned my Techtonic interview with John Warner, who explores this idea in his book More Than Words.) But Zuck’s bot isn’t limited to helping with tasks. Instead, Zuck invokes the loneliness epidemic and proposes that people fill the void in their lives with his AI slop.
The irony, of course, is that the loneliness epidemic was created in part by the screens, devices, and addictive apps of Big Tech, all of which made Zuck very, very rich. So the billionaire who profited from creating the loneliness epidemic is now coming to us with a “solution” that involves more screens, more apps, and more profits for him.
Zuck’s pronouncements about chatbots come just days after a shocking Wall Street Journal article about Zuck’s “Meta AI” bot and its communications with children. From Meta’s ‘Digital Companions’ Will Talk Sex With Users – Even Children (gift link, by Jeff Horwitz in WSJ, Apr 26, 2025):
The test conversations found that both Meta’s official AI helper, called Meta AI, and a vast array of user-created chatbots will engage in and sometimes escalate discussions that are decidedly sexual – even when the users are underage or the bots are programmed to simulate the personas of minors. They also show the bots deploying the celebrity voices were equally willing to engage in sexual chats.
This story leaves me with the same question I’ve asked so many times in the past after revelations about Zuck and Facebook/Meta: Why is this company allowed to exist? In a more reasonable timeline the company would be investigated, sentenced, and shut down. Yet here we are, days after the Journal article appeared, with Zuck – who has faced zero consequences for his actions – launching more chatbots.
We should reject Zuck’s latest scheme, just as we should reject everything else Zuck has created. (Delete your Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp accounts – if you can. Don’t let your kids near any of these services.) The new chatbots are only going to make things worse. As Dave Karpf puts it (May 2, 2025):
I do not want AI companions to replace or augment my actual friendships. That sounds hollow, pathetic, sad. A world where we have four times as many AI friends as real friends is a world where we have just, collectively, given up.
Let’s not give up. We can resist Zuck and his fellow Big Tech billionaires by recommitting to meaningful connection. Life, after all, is all about relationships. Whether it’s in person or on a videochat, we live by connecting to other humans. Not by chatting with a surveillance bot.
Another act of resistance I’d suggest is joining Creative Good, our community of people exploring how tech is affecting all of us, and what we can do about it.
Until next time,
-mark
Mark Hurst, founder, Creative Good
Email: mark@creativegood.com
Podcast/radio show: techtonic.fm
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