[reify]

Like everything in life.

You have to believe in something for it to work. Without belief it will always fail.

I am a retired psychotherapist and for psychotherapy to work the client must have the most basic assumptions and belief that psychotherapy will work for them, If not psychotherapy will fail.

If you are lonely you must still have a belief that what is offered is going to reduce the symptoms of Loneliness.

Take Krishna consciousness as an example.

You must believe whole heartedly that lord Krishna exists and simple devotional service and a commitment to, and love of, Lord Krishna will lead your soul to him when your body dies and your soul leaves this material world.

Isnt that a wonderful thing if you believe it.

I dont think any ai can ever reproduce the unspoken interpersonal, intrapersonal stuff that goes on, out of awareness, during the interactions between human beings.

I am thinking projections, projective identification, introjects and transference and counter transference as examples. You have to be human to know, feel, sense and experience these things.

No amount of coding trickery will duplicate the vast oceans of human experience

[omars_]

I agree that belief plays a role, and that it would be difficult to perfectly replicate interactions between human beings, but I think you can get partly there, and especially for those that don't have human beings that they can interact with, it could provide benefits to them.

I've been working on my own for some time now, and I find talking to an AI via text or voice helps me work through problems, and it does give me a partial feeling of having a coworker.

Personally, while I have various social connections, there are certain things that I find interesting that none of my social connections do, and so there are certain conversations I cannot have with my social group. I sense engaging with an AI about these topics could give me more pleasure than talking to a disinterested friend about it. An interested friend would still be the best case scenario, but that is why I was thinking a product like this could be useful for those that don't have friends.

As @bsenftner mentioned as well, if you've withdrawn from social situations due to past interactions, because you feel misunderstood, or aren't good at expressing yourself, then having this no-risk platform to experiment / practice socializing with a conversational AI could be something that appeals to you, and over time gets you to a place where you seek out the real thing.

[bsenftner]

I think you are correct, for well educated critically aware individuals. For the larger population of uneducated, failed educations, and critically unaware individuals something like the proposed software could be a life raft, a life preserver for those with no one, providing their initial communications training to end that loneliness.

I believe a fair amount of loneliness is caused by a failed communications education - the struggling person cannot express their situation in a manner they are understood, creating a chasm they feel is impossible to cross. So they retreat.