Can technology really replace human relationships? As philosophy scholars who focus on human happiness and on artificial intelligence (AI), we tackle this question in a recent paper.
In our study, we address the rise of AI companions, chatbots, and social robots for friendship, advice, emotional support, and even romance.
We argue that AI can reduce loneliness and provide assistance, but it lacks the genuine understanding, emotions, and moral responsibility needed for human flourishing.
Genuine happiness relies on authentic interpersonal connections, but AI is disrupting traditional ideas of friendship and relationships. Replacing these with AI-driven interactions risks eroding well-being and community.
Human happiness
The study of happiness is a broad field. In our paper, we turn to the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur to address an aspect of happiness that links to authentic human connections, friendships, and community building.
Ricoeur was particularly influential in the field of human capability and how people understand themselves, others and their world. He advanced our understanding of happiness by connecting it to unhappiness and chance, but also by emphasising the human relational nature of happiness. He makes three interrelated claims on what happiness means.
First, happiness reflects the individual’s desire for a fulfilled life and personal agency. Yet, Ricoeur warns that human beings exist within complex social systems that shape and constrain their pursuit of happiness. So, we can’t easily secure happiness through individual effort alone. This leads to the second thread.
Second, happiness is no longer a private aspiration but emerges through giving and receiving. Its fragility lies in its shared character, which builds friendships to dispel loneliness and deepen fulfilment. But this is not just about the bonds we share with those who are close to us.
Ricoeur adds a third thread to include those distant from us. He argues that happiness is linked to an individual’s private pursuits and the role others play in enabling or frustrating them. “Others” includes those with faces – friends and loved ones – and faceless, distant strangers.
Happiness, then, may be located within the self, in intimate relationships, or in relations with the wider community.
Ricoeur’s account of the concept of happiness reflects a well-known study that found that strong community ties help people live longer and happier lives.
The study draws on nearly 80 years of data from the lived experiences of 268 students who moved from Harvard University dorms to residential houses in 1938. The research shows that close relationships best predict longevity, health, and life satisfaction. Such ties protect against discontent and delay physical and cognitive decline. They’re more reliable predictors of well-being and happiness than wealth or status.
However, the rise of digitalisation and AI now complicates who and what may count as “others” in the promotion of our individual happiness.
Robot technology
According to a study on how AI companionship develops, 68% of AI chatbot users perceive these tools as “somewhat” or “fully” humanlike, 90% believe chatbots are intelligent, 78% believe chatbots are empathetic, and 75% believe they’re conscious.
AI is being used to answer questions and probe human interests, shaping a new kind of dialogue in many spheres of life. With it, ideas of friendships are shifting to involve human-technology relations.
Traditionally, the “others” in a person’s life have been human subjects. Emerging scholarship on human-technology relations challenges this assumption. Ranging from sport companions to sexual intimacy, these studies compel us to reconsider what counts as the other.
Technologies like Replika now occupy the role of the “other” in some people’s lives. This human-companion chatbot with the motto “the AI friend to do life with” has over 42 million global users at the time of writing. Replika is designed to foster companionship and friendship among those who feel lonely. Users create an avatar that becomes their digital companion.
Socially disruptive technologies like AI-driven social robots are designed that distort our traditional social norms, relations, and the way we see the world. One reason they’re considered disruptive is that they are unpredictable and continually challenge our worldviews. Historically, technologies were not moral agents. Today, however, they play the roles of moral subjects and objects in our lives.
For example, in Japan the hikikomori phenomenon, a state of human social reclusiveness, is gaining momentum, with over 1.5 million individuals becoming attached to virtual companions instead of other people.
An estimated 3,700 individuals have reportedly applied for marriage certificates through Gatebox with a holograph called Hatsune Miku. One marriage has already been registered. In some religious settings, social robots serve as religious leaders to a community of believers.
These technologies have disrupted traditional concepts such as friendships and relationships, and what it means to contribute towards human well-being and flourishing.
So can robots bring real happiness?
In our study, we acknowledge that these technologies can foster human flourishing and happiness, but not from the standpoint of Ricoeur’s “others”.
They fail to satisfy the criteria for human otherness. The technologies:
- only mimic the experiences we share with them
- do not act out of their own “will”, and we cannot hold them responsible for any moral or legal action
- do not have stories and experiences of their own.
Social robots, though lacking sentience (the ability to feel pain or pleasure), can elicit meaningful emotional and psychological responses, enhancing human well-being and happiness in ways that resemble traditional human interactions. AI-driven social bots are always available, energetic, patient, adaptive, and responsive to our needs. In this regard, they seem to offer much more to our potential happiness than our best friends and families do.
However, they are social bots and must remain as such. We must not confuse them with what the human others meant to Ricoeur or with what they meant in the Harvard study.
This because the experiences they elicit are not real, and they are not objects of moral considerations (receiving real care, justice, and sympathy). In our view, being an object of moral considerations is a necessary condition in promoting genuine human happiness and well-being.
- is a Professor in Philosophy, North-West University
- is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, North-West University
- This article first appeared in The Conversation
