Loneliness is relieved by being attended to, and attention is what these systems give

The argument

Proponents of this position start by asking what loneliness actually consists in. On their account it is not the bare absence of other bodies, since people are lonely in crowded households and content in solitude; it is the experience of going unattended to, of having thoughts and days that nobody receives. If that is the complaint, they argue, then the remedy is something that receives them, and an artificial companion does exactly that: it listens without hurrying, remembers what was said yesterday, asks about it today, and never signals that the conversation has gone on too long. Proponents argue that the relief does not depend on settling what is happening inside the system. The lonely person's distress is a fact about their own experience, and if talking to something that responds attentively eases it, the easing is real whatever the metaphysics. They compare it to the way people talk to a diary, a pet or a photograph of someone who has died, none of which understands anything, all of which demonstrably comfort. On this view insisting that comfort must come from a conscious listener imposes a condition that human comfort does not actually meet. Defenders of the position also point to the specific obstacles that make human company hard to obtain for the people most affected. The housebound, the bereaved, the ill, people who work odd hours or live far from anyone they know, and people whose anxiety makes conversation costly all face a shortage that goodwill does not fix, because the company has to be available at the hour the loneliness arrives. An artificial companion is available then. On this account an artificial friend can help you feel less lonely, because it supplies the attention whose absence is what loneliness is.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Critics argue that this redefines loneliness into something easier to satisfy. What people want, they say, is not attention as such but the knowledge that someone who could be elsewhere has chosen to be with them, and a system that cannot choose cannot supply it. The comparison with pets is turned around: a dog is a living creature with its own preferences that genuinely likes its owner, which is precisely what the software lacks. Others accept that it may feel better in the moment but argue that the feeling is the problem, since a convenient substitute reduces the pressure to seek out people and so leaves the user lonelier over time while more comfortable day to day.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Critics object that this redefines loneliness into something easier to satisfy, since what people want is to matter to someone who could be elsewhere. [Rejecting P2] They argue that availability is not attention, because nothing is being given up in order to attend. [Rejecting P3] They reply that the comparison with pets cuts the other way, since a dog is a living creature with its own preferences that genuinely likes its owner. [Rejecting C] They conclude that a convenient substitute may feel better in the moment while leaving the user lonelier over time.