Recent tragic cases in the US of teenagers taking their life after emotional conversations with chatbots showed that the inevitable rise of AI ‘friends’ will need proper guardrails. That is a lot longer than I spend with any one of my human friends. In an ideal world, the solution to this is more time outdoors, more time doing social hobbies, more time being open to meeting new people and making real friends and companions. AI friends won’t be sycophantic, either. What sort of effect they will have on loneliness or our messy relationships is uncertain, but like so much in the technology world these days, AI friends are coming, whether we are ready or not.