The Problem(?) with having AI Relationships

Already lots of people are building relationships with AIs: as therapists, interlocutors, assistants, etc. Unlike some folks in my life, I don’t quite see a problem with most of these relationships, or almost any one of these. However, I do see an issue collectively, at both the scale of the individual and all of their relationships, and also at the scale of every relationship in a society.

The itch I’m scratching at could easily be viewed as a continuation of a capitalistic trend, where it is becoming easier and more accepted to rent a person’s time for an increasing number of tasks: driving, cleaning, cooking, TaskRabbit handyman stuff, etc. With the advent of AI, I can now rent compute to help me book flights, or build a website, or teach me about any subject. All fine. But I can also rent that same compute to entertain me in the middle of the night while the lights are out, to talk about my relationships with friends and family, to help me write a speech for my friend’s wedding.

Of course these are incredibly helpful skills if the alternatives are worse relationships, loneliness, or a boring, poorly written speech. But there’s something about generative AI that is categorically different from TaskRabbit, and it’s related to how “quantity has a quality all its own.”

The reason I see AI as requiring a different moral lens is the sheer breadth of services that it can render, from resume builder to friend. My relationship with AI chatbots, or any AI product, is strictly contractual: a service for payment. This is what I find important. Across each one of the possible use-cases that AI slots in, there’s one thing that’s always the same. It’s payment for a service. I’m informed by media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s dictum “The medium is the message,” which Neil Postman furthered in Amusing Ourselves to Death. Postman explains that our tools shape us as much as we shape them. In our context, AI’s message, its philosophy as a tool is that it’s always available, there’s never friction, it’s completely customizable and moldable to you, there’s never a need for reciprocity, and it’s paid for. Each of these pieces deserves greater attention and scrutiny, but for now I want to focus on how payment creates the lack of reciprocity.

The moment payment is rendered for a service, any obligation from one party to the other is severed. A year ago I asked some friends to help me paint a few walls in my apartment. I didn’t pay them for the help, but if I had, what would have happened afterward? Well, I wouldn’t owe them anything, but I also wouldn’t feel closer to them. Actually, everyone would have felt further apart, something cheapened by the act of payment. That feeling would be indicative of some value being lost. I’d argue that by not paying them, I would have gained an obligation to help them in the future and they would have gained the knowledge that there’s someone around to help them. Each obligation to help when called upon adds new threads to the web of our relationships.

Because every interaction with a chatbot or an AI agent is transactional, and more people are having increasing numbers of these relationships for any number of tasks or needs, talking to chatbots or agents pushes humans to see an ever-increasing number of their relationships as transactional. By transactional, I mean relationships that don’t require any reciprocity other than payment.

Let me restate: when more and more of my overall relationships with conversational partners become transactional, I am urged, pressured, self-guided to see more of my human relationships, with friends and family, as transactional too.

Why? My expectation is if we experience less social friction, we expect less friction, we tolerate less friction. It is just so much easier; the opportunity cost couldn’t be lower; the risk is so low to ask Claude for help, why would I ask a friend? When I pay for a service, asking Claude, I don’t create any obligations. But I also don’t get any of the additional effects, like deepening a friendship. Losing the obligation is the loss of friction, and it is an upfront benefit that masks the underlying cost of preventing deeper friendships. COVID showed that a society that doesn’t use its socializing muscles sees them atrophy.

Let me pause and state that this, of course, isn’t a critique of transactional relationships. They are necessary and useful in our society. But they shouldn’t be the only type of relationship that a person, or society, maintains.

Which leads me to the question “what is wrong with having more transactional relationships?” To answer this, allow me to go back a bit. Aristotle defined three ‘species’ of friendship:

• Friends of utility
• Friends of pleasure
• Friends of virtue

A friend of utility, as you would expect, is a friend that helps you reach your goals. They are useful to you in some way, and perhaps you are useful to them too. One way or another, AI is paid for, and because payment, an act I’ve argued preempts reciprocity, pushes any relationship toward a transactional one, AI fits comfortably into the box of “friend of utility.” There’s nothing wrong with this type of relationship! Most of my coworkers are and have been friends of utility and I’ve been lucky to have them. I, however, see AI as incapable of being either of the other two types of friends.

A friend of pleasure is one that is based upon enjoyment of a shared activity, like hobbies, exercise, pursuit of knowledge. Even though AI can tell me about an incredible concert or event and even buy the tickets for me, it can’t enjoy it with me. Sure, I’ve talked to Claude when I was traveling to learn about the place I was in. For example, last weekend it told me about the Statue of Liberty as I walked its base. Claude waxed on about the history and the symbolism, the geopolitics and the creators. But it wasn’t enjoying the view with me, it wasn’t appreciating the smells, it wasn’t feeling the power of the moment. Shared enjoyment is something that two people give each other. Claude can never be my friend of pleasure.

I think that the concept of friends of virtue is actually a harder case. A friend of virtue is one that you respect, someone who pushes you to be a better version of yourself. I’d generously say that Claude often helps me improve myself, increasing my knowledge, keeping me on top of my tasks, helping me with tact and emotional intelligence through specific, bespoke messages to humans in my life. And I can see the argument that someone could respect Claude! Sure, it feels like a category error, but I can look past that. I, however, cannot help Claude be a better version of itself. There is no generosity I can show to Claude. It cannot respect me and we cannot grow together. Therefore, at best it could be a warped mentor/mentee relationship, but I don’t think I’d grant even that much. A one-sided friendship of this nature cannot exist and so Claude cannot be my friend of virtue.

So now allow me to return to the question of having more (or only) transactional relationships. There’s nothing inherently wrong with having friends of utility. They are so foundational that Aristotle defined a term for them. But there is something lacking if those are the only relationships one has. If friends of utility crowd out friends of pleasure, then a person would have fewer relationships to enjoy the fruits of life with. And if friends of virtue are crowded out, there will be fewer vectors by which we are pushed to grow. One’s muscle of respecting another’s virtue will atrophy, showing generosity will wither. A society that’s lost its capacity for respect and generosity, I’d argue, is worse.

AI has immense utility. That much is clear. My life has been improved in numerous ways by having access to a suite of incredible tools and breathtaking intelligence. However, Claude can only be a friend of utility and cannot, and should not, replace any human friends I have of pleasure or virtue.

Perhaps this is just a post-COVID result that society is losing patience with the frictions of human connection, or perhaps this is just another in a litany of forces pushing humanity towards relationships where to get the desired outcome, one only needs to pay a fee to rent a service. Money solves so many problems, but it shouldn’t solve all of them.