AI Isn’t Your Friend

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and OpenAlI’s Sam Altman have been aggressively promoting the idea that everyone - children included — should form relationships with AI “friends” or “companions.” Meanwhile, multinational tech companies are pushing the concept of “Al agents” designed to assist us in our personal and professional lives, handle routine tasks, and guide decision-making.

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But the reality is that AI systems are not, and never will be, friends, companions, or agents. They are, and will always remain, machines. We should be honest about that and push back against misleading marketing that suggests otherwise.

The most deceptive term of all is “artificial intelligence.” These systems are not truly intelligent, and what we call “Al” today is simply aset of technical tools designed to mimic certain cognitive functions. They are not capable of true comprehension and are neither objective, fair, nor neutral.

Nor are they becoming any smarter. AI systems rely on data to function, and increasingly, that includes data generated by tools like ChatGPT. The result is a feedback loop that recycles output without producing deeper understanding.

More fundamentally, intelligence is not just about solving tasks; it’s also about how those tasks are approached and performed. Despite their technical capabilities, AI models remain limited to specific domains, such as processing large datasets, performing logical deductions, and making calculations.