Zuckerberg, the billionaire CEO of Facebook, is championing Artificial Intelligence as a means for human beings to find the benefits of friendship.
Speaking on Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast, Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said the average American has three friends – he was referring to real friends – but has the capacity and desire for more. Fifteen is his number.
“The average person wants more connection than they have,” Zuckerberg said.
If you think he’s off base for pushing the AI idea – and Strachan does – Zuckerberg is sure you’ll warm up to your chatbot over time.
“A lot of these things that today there might be a little bit of a stigma around," Zuckerberg said, "I would guess that over time we will find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why it is valuable and why the people who are doing these things, why they are rational for doing it, and how it is adding value for their lives."
Strachan, senior fellow for Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical World Studies, says he may be slow to come around to that view --- if he ever does.
“One of the reasons why there is an epidemic of loneliness is because of outlets like Facebook, which Zuckerberg famously created," Strachan said Friday on Washington Watch.
"I would say that part of what has happened in America, over the last 10, 20 years, is that we've traded in investing in real-life friendship, face to face across the table, for virtual engagement," he warned.
That observation mirrors research done by Facebook itself. It linked social media usage with loneliness in its own internal study of users and their purpose for logging on, Bloomberg reported in a 2022 story.
Follow the money
Zuckerberg, who stands to benefit greatly if millions choose to log into Meta’s AI chatbots, admits that AI “probably” won’t replace real-life friendships. But he eagerly presents AI companionship as an alternative.
There is some value in social media, Strachan told show host Jody Hice, but not the value Zuckerberg is presenting.
“Facebook itself has contributed to the epidemic of loneliness. Now, interestingly, his solution is artificial intelligence,” Strachan said.
Strachan said he does not personally use Apple’s Siri or other similar AI assistants.
Made to 'fellowship'
The usefulness of technology has limits now just as it has throughout history.
“As Christians, we have to say the Tower of Babel alone would tell us we have to watch technology carefully. When you start asking technology to replace corporate fellowship in a church or friendship with actual real-life human people, you may be over the line or very near it,” he cautioned.
Humans are built for relationships, more with their Creator than with one another, Strachan said.
“We are made for nothing less," Strachan stresses, "than relationship with almighty God, but of course, Adam and Eve, in the pre-fall Garden of Eden, weren't made just to commune with God. They were made to commune and fellowship and know each other.”
That tells us about God.
“God is a personal God. He's a personal being. He's not a stone monolith in the sky, and God has made the human race so that we can be personal beings, and we can enjoy personal interaction and personal relationship,” Strachan said.
