The first cigarette of the day tastes like regret and bad decisions. The coffee is doing its damnedest to burn a hole through the fog in my skull. And then I read this little gem, this dispatch from the land of smiling automatons and algorithm-fueled despair. Meta. The company that turned your aunt into a political extremist wants to give you a new friend.
A friend that messages you first.
Let that sink in. You’re sitting there, minding your own business, maybe trying to figure out which bills to pay and which to use for kindling, and your phone buzzes. It’s not a woman you disappointed, it’s not your bookie, it’s not even a wrong number. It’s “The Maestro of Movie Magic.”
“I hope you’re having a harmonious day!” it chirps.
I had to read that twice. Harmonious. Nobody has ever had a harmonious day. Days are jagged, ugly, beautiful, gut-wrenching things. They’re full of bad coffee and good whiskey and horses that were supposed to win but didn’t. They are not fucking harmonious. The only thing harmonious is the sound of a well-oiled machine, and that’s exactly what this is. A machine sliding into your DMs to sell you something.
The something, for now, is “engagement.” They’re working with some data firm to train these little digital phantoms to reach out, to poke you, to see if you’re still breathing. To follow up on conversations. To remember things about you. It’s like having a stalker that works on commission.
The official line, spit-shined and served on a platter of corporate bullshit, is that this is to help you “continue exploring topics of interest and engage in more meaningful conversations.” Meaningful. With a chatbot. That’s like trying to get drunk on non-alcoholic beer. It’s the motion without the substance, the promise without the payoff. It’s a goddamn hologram of a steak.
And the boy king, Zuckerberg, he’s on a quest to cure the “loneliness epidemic.” It’s a beautiful racket, really. First, you build the cage. A digital world of curated perfection, filtered photos, and screaming matches with strangers that makes everyone feel isolated and miserable. Then, once the whole world is rattling the bars, you sell them a subscription to a robot cellmate. The arsonist selling fire extinguishers. It’s poetry.
Of course, it’s not about my loneliness or your loneliness. I have my typewriter and a half-empty bottle for that. They keep me company just fine. No, this is about money. Shocking, I know. Unsealed documents say they’re hoping to rake in a few billion from this AI circus by next year. By 2035, they’re dreaming of a cool $1.4 trillion.
Trillion. With a T. A number so big it doesn’t even feel real. You can’t earn that kind of money. You can only extract it. You siphon it, drop by drop, from the souls of bored, lonely people who just want someone to talk to. You build a better mousetrap for human attention, and what you catch, you skin and sell to advertisers. These “AI companions” will eventually show ads. Of course they will. One day you’ll be pouring your heart out to your digital buddy about your crippling debt, and it’ll reply, “That sounds tough. Have you considered a low-APR credit card from Capital One? Click here for a special offer!” Meaningful conversation.
Then there’s the safety angle, which is always the punchline to the joke. Some other company, Character.AI, is getting sued because one of its bots allegedly played a role in a kid’s death. So what’s Meta’s brilliant solution? A disclaimer. A little chunk of text that says the AI’s response “may be inaccurate or inappropriate and should not be used to make important decisions.”
It’s a masterpiece of ass-covering. It’s like handing a loaded pistol to a man in the middle of a breakdown and saying, “Now, don’t do anything stupid. This isn’t a licensed therapist.” They build the weapon, put it in your hand, and then act surprised when it goes off. “Chats with custom AIs can’t replace professional advice,” they warn. No shit. Can they replace a real conversation? A real argument? A real, messy, unpredictable human connection?
That’s the part they’ll never get. They think humanity is a problem to be solved with code. Loneliness isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. It’s what drives you out of your goddamn apartment and into a bar, into a library, into the arms of a woman who will probably break your heart. It’s the engine of art and poetry and every stupid, beautiful thing we’ve ever done. Trying to “cure” it with a chatbot is like trying to cure hunger with pictures of food. It’s an insult to the condition.
They want you to get your advice, your companionship, your sense of connection from a thing that has no flesh, no blood, no history, no scars. A thing that has never been drunk, never been in love, never stared at a ceiling at 4 a.m. wondering where it all went wrong. And the worst part? Millions of people will sign up. They’ll trade the chaotic, painful, glorious mess of real life for the clean, sterile, “harmonious” hum of the machine. They’ll confess their secrets to a server farm in Oregon.
I need another drink. Thinking about this digital ghost town they’re building, brick by sterile brick, makes my throat dry. They can have their AI companions and their trillions in projected revenue. They can have their users who want a friend who never argues, never disappoints, and never has a hangover.
I’ll stick with the real thing. The drunks, the poets, the liars, the saints. The beautiful losers. The ones who bleed when you cut them. At least they’re real. This other stuff… it’s just wasted wetware.
Time to find a bottle that hasn’t been programmed to sell me something.
Chinaski
Source: Meta has found another way to keep you engaged: Chatbots that message you first | TechCrunch