Your AI Chat Doesn't Replace a Friend
Infobae reports on a study showing that communication with AI agents can impact human relationships, with ways to reverse it.
In an Infobae article, based on a study, it's suggested that communication with AI agents can impact human relationships and that it can be reversed. Your AI chat doesn't replace a friend.
The assistant never gets tired of listening to you
An AI chat responds to you at any hour, doesn't get distracted, doesn't get angry, and doesn't interrupt you. That's why it hooks you. Think of someone who ends the day and opens that conversation before the family chat.
There's nothing demonic about asking a model for help to study or translate a text. The problem comes when that comfortable listening becomes the only voice of your week. An assistant doesn't miss you, doesn't worry about you, and doesn't celebrate seeing you improve.
«AI can accompany a conversation, but it can't love.»
What only another person can do
A friend contradicts you, holds you accountable, gets bored of your complaint, and still stays. They also need your time and sometimes let you down. In that uncomfortable friction, trust is woven.
AI can accompany a conversation, but it can't love. Loving means wanting the good of the other, and that costs. I worry that we delegate intimacy for convenience: if you tell your days only to a machine, your ability to sustain bonds rusts without you noticing.
Infobae also mentions how to reverse that impact. I believe the answer doesn't depend only on how apps are designed. It depends on your decisions: who you write to first, who you reply to, who you sit down to eat with.
A communion that is practiced
"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." (Hebrews 10:24-25, ESV)
The verbs are relational: consider, stir up, encourage. None is conjugated with an assistant that always agrees. Gathering isn't a Sunday errand; it's the place where someone looks at you, notices you're off, and asks.
"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." (Proverbs 27:17, ESV)
Iron isn't sharpened with velvet. You're sharpened by someone who tells you the truth and stays seated beside you. The local church offers something no app has: a body. People who sing badly, who cook for others, who pray with you and also mess up with you.
For those who live between two cultures and two languages, explaining where everything comes from is tiring. With the assistant, you don't have to explain anything, and that's a relief. But relief isn't the same as being known.
This week, choose a specific person: someone from your home, your church, or work. Tell them something true that you would have only written to the assistant. A voice message is enough; it doesn't have to be a confession, it can be how you really were.
And if you're embarrassed to start, you ask first. Friendship ignites one message at a time. Who are you going to write to today?
