We can all relax – Mark Zuckerberg has found a cure for loneliness

Our billionaire tech overlords have not been showering themselves with glory for their decision-making of late. The financial losses that Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk et al have weathered, both individually and for their companies, as a result of Trump’s tariffs and their endorsement of the man, are enormous and singularly embarrassing.

So when Mark Zuckerberg – the owner of Meta which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – revealed his plans to solve America’s human loneliness by rolling out increasingly personalised AI assistants, there was a collective sigh heard around the world. Zuckerberg said the average American had only three friends, but had the capacity and desire for 15. By getting a chatbot to take on one of these roles, you are not getting a friend, but a programmable serf.

In a pithy post that went viral last year, the author Joanna Maciejewska said, “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.” That goes for friendship, too: human friendship – a point which Zuckerberg seemed to have missed when he said: “The world is going to get a lot funnier, weirder, and quirkier.”

These are some of the best human traits which he now seeks to transfer into AGI (artificial general intelligence), an advancement of AI that possesses “human-level” intelligence. However, it’s wildly unlikely that this is about making people less lonely, and more about keeping users on his sites for longer. A Meta chatbot is unlikely to suggest things that will get lonely people outside, touching grass and meeting up with others. And is it really likely to tell its human “friend” to stop doomscrolling and spend less time on social media?

A 2024 poll from the American Psychiatric Association found that 30 of adults say they have experienced feelings of loneliness at least once a week over the past year. However, two-thirds said that technology “helps me form new relationships” – just not in the way that Zuckerberg perhaps envisaged.

Social media has been a godsend for many socially awkward people. The curious and chatty found a home on Twitter/X and, in the post-Musk exodus, on BlueSky. Those with shared special interests have congregated on Reddit. Anyone with a creative bent can find community on Instagram. Unfortunately, Facebook has become a dumping ground for boring people you met once on a weekend away in 2008. We already have plenty of people we can talk to there, and rarely if ever in real life. Who needs a chatbot when you’ve got Facebook friends?

More insidiously – and I apologise if there are shades of Mary Whitehouse here – what chatbots offer is not friendship, but pliable control. Friendship has to be earned. A chatbot has to be programmed. And making friends – whether online or in real life – is a skill that has to be learned.

I am by no means the only person who has found great relief, and great friendships, in online conversation – real-world networking socials were a big thing when I started in journalism and I would dissolve into porridge at the prospect in a way that phases me significantly less now – but unless you have a concrete idea who someone is, you are just speaking into the wind.

Keening parties do like to bang on about an epidemic of male loneliness. Sorry, but this is not going to be solved by chatbots any more than spending 20 minutes on hold with your bank will make you feel more connected to your finances. Building reciprocal relationships can be hard. It’s a challenge that’s worth the effort. Many social niceties can be difficult to master, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to learn them. It’s part of being an adult.

What a chatbot offers – and Zuckerberg perhaps by extension – is the right to be heard but never to be challenged. That isn’t a cure for loneliness but an invitation to megalomania.