Can AI cure loneliness? New research says no

One in five Americans have used an AI specifically designed to simulate a romantic partner, and 72% of teenagers have tried an AI companion at least once, according to a 2024 Common Sense Media survey.

A recent study conducted and published in Psychological Science tracked over 2,000 people over the course of 12 months and found that those who rely on artificial intelligence for social interaction become even more lonely compared to before.

In this research, scientists monitored the chatbot usage and level of loneliness experienced by adults from English-speaking countries for one full year while taking into account any life-changing factors such as relationship termination or relocation which may influence the results of the experiment.

Overall, the conclusion of the study showed an evident trend of increasing loneliness in those who were previously more lonely and used more and more chatbots over the course of the year.

A separate study from the University of British Columbia put AI companions to a direct test with college freshmen, one of the most socially vulnerable groups during any given year. Students who texted a randomly assigned fellow first-semester student every day for two weeks reported around a 9% reduction in loneliness.

Students who messaged a Discord chatbot daily for the same period saw a 2% reduction statistically identical to writing a single sentence in a journal each day. The gap between human contact and AI contact was not close.

According to UBC’s lead author Ruo-Ning Li, the fundamental flaw of AI companions lies within their structure, not technology. "When you're talking with a chatbot, you can get a lot from it, but you never have the chance to give something back," said Ruo-Ning Li in a discussion among scientists.

Li believes that human connections depend not only on receiving help and feeling needed by another person but also on giving help to another person. Organisational psychologist Adam Grant also shared his opinion about human connections, saying that relationships presuppose providing services to people and AI chatbots can never be companions but servants.