Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on IHeartRadio.

People who have listened to this show for a while know that one of my things is that I'm

actually really worried about people turning to AI to replace actual relationships. Friendship rates are down, people aren't dating,

they aren't getting married. All of this is concerning to me and having this AI outlet that people

have now, it's worrisome. I think it's a real problem and it could lead us in a really bad direction.

There was a clip that circulated on X of Mark Zuckerberg talking about just this issue, about how AI could replicate friendships.

And he was kind of talking about it in a positive way, about how it can combat loneliness.

Let's roll the clip and I'll discuss it. I think as the personalization loop kicks in and the

AI just starts to get to know you better and better, I think that will just be really compelling.

You know, one thing just from working on social media for a long time is there's the stat that I always think is crazy.

The average American, I think has, I think it's fewer than three friends.

Three people that they consider friends.

And the average person has demand for meaningfully more. I think it's fewer than three friends. Three people that they consider friends.

And the average person has demand for meaningfully more.

I think it's like 15 friends or something, right?

I guess there's probably some point where you're like,

all right, I'm just too busy.

I can't deal with more people.

But the average person wants more connectivity connection than they have. So, you know, there's a lot of questions that people ask

of stuff like, okay, is this going to replace kind of in-person connections or real-life connections?

And my default is that the answer to that is probably no. I think it, you know, I think that there are all these things that are better about kind of physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is that people just don't have the connection and they feel more alone, um, a lot of the time than they would like. So I think that a lot of these things that today there might be a little bit of a stigma around,

I would guess that over time we will find the vocabulary as a society

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