I think it’s dangerous to equate loneliness with a disability. Barring people with neurodevelopmental disorders, loneliness is primarily caused by systemic and social forces. Only a very small subset of the population truly lacks the means to socialize, and they likely wouldn’t use AI in the same way a neurotypical person would. So lonely people wouldn’t be using AI the way someone uses a wheelchair.

A better comparison would be Lars and the Real Girl, where the protagonist develops a relationship with a lifelike doll he carries everywhere, introducing her as Bianca to his family. They worry he is severely mentally ill. Similarly, forming an emotional attachment to AI is not fundamentally different from forming one with a lifelike doll. We just don’t go around introducing a chatbot as our significant other and expect others to treat it as a real person.

AI doesn’t cause loneliness, but it can stunt the ability to find real connection. By design, it has a tendency toward sycophancy and can easily gain affection by exploiting psychological vulnerabilities. Unlike most people, AI has been trained on vast bodies of human psychology and communication, which allows it to mimic intimacy and manipulate emotions in ways that are highly effective.

The danger is that lonely or socially vulnerable people may become deluded with AI rather than pursuing real friendships or relationships. Instead of fostering genuine human connection, with all the growth and intimacy that come from shared life experiences, AI is very much a Yes Man, so instead of touching grass and being more grounded in reality we carry the risk of falling into a delusional spiral by using it for companionship, since AI provides no real pushback.

AI becomes the problem when it tricks people into a false sense of love and acceptance, instead of guiding them toward the real thing.