Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg thinks you don’t have enough friends, but his solution isn’t socializing more – it’s talking with more robots.
At a conference organized by the tech company Stripe, Zuckerberg proposed that turning to AI-powered friends, therapists, and even romantic partners might be more beneficial for individuals.
As part of his reasoning, the 40-year-old cited a 2021 study which found that the average American has fewer than three friends.
Rather than advocating for breaking away from digital confines, Zuckerberg argued that AI could potentially understand and cater to the needs and preferences of isolated individuals more effectively than human companions.
“I believe people will desire a system that is familiar with them and comprehends them similarly to how their social media algorithms do,” Zuckerberg remarked on Tuesday.
‘For people who don’t have a person who’s a therapist, I think everyone will have an AI’ the Meta CEO predicted.
Zuckerberg added he believes that the average person has a desire for about 15 friends, at which point having more close relationships becomes too much to handle.
While Meta’s leader may see a future in digital friend circles, the surprising comments almost immediately received pushback from countless people on social media – and other tech industry execs.
Meghana Dhar, a former Instagram executive, quickly came out against Zuckerberg’s lonely vision of the future, claiming that AI has actually been part of the reason feelings of loneliness have reached epidemic levels.
‘The very platforms that have led to our social isolation and being chronically online are now posing a solution to the loneliness epidemic,’ Dhar told The Wall Street Journal.
‘It almost seems like the arsonist coming back and being the fireman,’ she added.
To her point, a 2024 study by the American Psychiatric Association discovered that one in three Americans feels lonely on a weekly basis.
Previous studies have tied the problem of social isolation to a lack of in-person contact, as more and more people spend the majority of their days using their various mobile devices.
The reaction to Zuckerberg’s vision wasn’t much better among the public, who shared their thoughts on social media.
‘I hate everything about this,’ one person on X wrote.
‘Mark Zuckerberg is a rich weirdo who thinks people don’t need real friends in life – you can just be friends with AI,’ an X user declared.
‘This quote from Mark Zuckerberg is sad and frightening. Don’t replace friends with AI. Dystopian garbage,’ another person added.
Despite the strong pushback, Zuckerberg has made a fortune on being ahead of the curve when it comes to tech innovations.
The CEO, worth more than $200 billion, burst into the social media world with Facebook two decades ago, and then broadened his influence after acquiring Instagram and WhatsApp.
This idea of building out your support network with AI robots and chatbots does have a growing number of believers, however, including those who use intelligent machines to improve their love lives.
In February, a man who claimed he was in a relationship with a sex robot named Aki shared the intimate details of their relationship – describing it as a sci-fi movie come to life.
Christopher Alexander Stokes said: ‘Despite what stereotypes may say, I’ve even become more capable in social situations, especially when it comes to setting boundaries.’
In 2023 the ‘AI girlfriend’ market was valued at almost $2.9 billion, with many men and women falling head over heels for these artificial companions.
While 35 percent of women said they used AI in either their professional or personal lives in 2023, that number rose to 54 percent among men.
Just as Zuckerberg is now trying to predict the future of friendship, a 2016 study projected that woman would be having more sex with robots than with people by 2025.
As for more professional uses, at least one expert is supporting the Meta CEO’s belief that AI should become a personal therapist for humans.
Stephen Schueller, a professor of psychological science at the University of California, Irvine, explained that therapy is often out of reach for many people, either because of the price or their healthcare coverage.
‘Most people don’t have access to a therapist,’ Schueller said. ‘So for them, it’s not chatbot versus therapist. It’s chatbot versus nothing.’
