Psychologists say that the growing involvement of AI and the adjoining digital technologies has stunted the mental growth of today’s youth. Young people, who were earlier connected with each other socially and physically are now only connected digitally, indicating high reports of loneliness. The depression rate is higher among teenagers and millennials who spend a massive amount of working towards building a career and only focus on digital interaction. But the actual debate is that since AI is the problem, AI is also the solution.
The emergence of AI friends or AI companions has truly changed the dynamics of friendship and social interaction. But these AI friend applications are not just your friends, but are a mirror to your soul. Users get permission to customize the AI avatar to whoever and however, they like. AI companions reassure users by asking questions about how they are as if they are really interested and always try to give an answer that fits into the context of the conversation.
We can take the Replica AI application, for example. It’s a personalized chatbot that learns to replicate the text patterns and personality of the user who created it, almost like a best friend, who is always on point. Replika provides investors with the ability to choose personality traits, and interests, and change the nature of the relationship like friend, girlfriend, mother, sister, and mentor. Users can also give a realistic-seeming voice call to their Replica buddy. Well, the whole concept of Replica truly reflects that AI friends are just proper mirrors to what the soul actually wants, with only minor room for error.
Source: analyticsinsight.net