Reid riffs on AI companions, human friends, and age gates

On this week’s Riff, Reid reacts to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s suggestion that AIs can help address the loneliness epidemic and function as friends. He and Aria discuss why AIs can be great companions but not great friends, along with how to protect against agent misuse and deception. For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Many people saw that Mark Zuckerberg recently doubled down on a vision in which users have AI companions who understand them in the way that their feed algorithms do. So Zug noted that the average American has three friends or fewer, but has the capacity to have 15. And that makes me sad as a human. If people only have three friends, they want 15. Like, I really believe in the loneliness epidemic and the idea that sort of human connection is so critical. His solution is that personalized chatbots could fill that void. It's like they could be embedded across Meta's Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Ray-Ban, Meta Glasses, and this could be a solution to address this problem of social connection.

• 0:43Speaker 00

  So let's first talk about just the technology. What has to work, memory, voice, visuals, before these AI companions move from, you know, a cool demo, something we're talking about, to something people actually interact with, like they would, you know, a friend on TikTok or Instagram?

• 1:01Reid Hoffman?

  Well, actually, in fact, I think this question is important enough that I'm actually going to start with the distinction between companions and friends, and then we can actually get into the technology.

• 1:10Speaker 00

  Great.

• 1:11Reid Hoffman?

  Because I actually think it's extremely important that people understand the difference between companions and friends. And I think it's important whether, you know, all social media platforms, you know, Facebook, but in everything Facebook owns, but also LinkedIn and TikTok and YouTube and everybody, actually understand that friendship is a two-directional relationship. And whereas companionship and many other kind of interactions are not necessarily two-directional. They can be, but they're not necessarily. And I think that's extremely important because it's the kind of subtle erosion of humanity, human beings.

• 1:54Reid Hoffman?

  To allow people to to fall into that misunderstanding. And and by the way, there's a lot of people who naturally would fall into it anyway, because they think, well, friends are people who do good things for me. And that's, you know, so it's it's it's the you praise me, you tell me I'm great. You're there for me at 2am, you know, your friendship is you're there for me. Right. And actually, in fact, that's a a massive, you know, kind of like a diminishment of your own character, of your own soul. Friendship is a two directional thing. It's not only are you there for me, but I am there for you. Now, you can have different theories about friendship. I mean, my own theory of friendship is two people agree to help each other become

• 2:39Reid Hoffman?

  the best versions of themselves. And I think that's an extremely important thing. But by the way, not only is it important that that you're receiving that help to be the best version of yourself, but the fact that you're giving that help to be the best version of their self is also part of what makes you better. The kind of thing that's important in your own growth with friendship is you might show up at a lunch with a friend going, I'm planning on talking about this really terrible week that I've had. And, you know, this, you know, and I'm really looking forward to seeing my friend because they're going to help me with this. You sit down, your friend's like, oh, yeah, my mother died yesterday. And you're like, and we're going to talk about my friend. Right, right. And that that is precisely what is so important to be in friendship, to learn

• 3:24Reid Hoffman?

  in friendship. And that kind of thing is very, very important. And so I don't think any AI tool today is capable of being a friend. And I think if it's pretending to be a friend, you're actually harming the person in so doing, and you should not. And this is the reason why inflections, you know, Pi, when you say, hey, you're my best friend, says, no, no, I'm your companion. Hey, should we talk about your friends? Have you seen any of them? Can you see them? You know, what's the thing? Because helping you go out into your world of friends is, I think, an extremely important thing for companions to do.

• 4:04Reid Hoffman?

  And by the way, that doesn't say that I don't think there is an important role for AI companions. For, you know, all people. I think AI companions can play a very fruitful human role for people. But the important thing is to be on that kind of like, what function are they playing? And it's extremely important for these companions to not be deceptive about role they're playing. And I think that there's a whole set of theory. Now, by the way, once you get into the detail of that, like you say, okay, we trained a companion to be there for human being category X. We are trained for this category, and this is our theory of human

• 4:48Reid Hoffman?

  nature. And this is our theory about how we contribute, and should both be, to some degree, pre-advertised, and also there at the drop of a hat when something strange might be coming. And so like, I'm trained to be a therapeutic companion. And oh, by the way, you're going into a zone where I'm planning on selling you something. Well, I should be explicit about that. So now, this gets us to the

• 5:11Speaker 00

  Well, actually, Reid, just one question about that. So I understand you're like, okay, companions, many uses, therapy, et cetera. These aren't good for friends to replace humans, or even augment your sort of friend list. But what do we do? Because inevitably, these will become people's friends. There are gonna be some companies that are promoting AI friends. Is this just a public service campaign to tell people not to? Is this talking to the leaders with these AI companies? Is there government regulation? Like, what do we do now that you sort of disagree with that stance?

• 5:43Reid Hoffman?

  Well, I think it's beholden upon, call it, the experts, the influencers, and also, you know, kind of the body politic to speak out on this. Because the question would be is, like, like, my sense would be is, at minimum, it'd be good to have an MPAA on this.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 6:06Reid Hoffman?

  That kind of said, hey, people have to, like, here is where you have to be clear about what you're doing. And you have to be upfront before, and you have to have these intervention points. And if you say, hey, I'm signing up for MPAA, you know, movie thing, PG 13, then this is what I do.

• 6:26Speaker 00

  Right. I know what I'm gonna get.

• 6:28Reid Hoffman?

  Yeah, I know what you're gonna get. And I think that's extremely important. And

• 6:33Reid Hoffman?

  Obviously, if there was such a, you know, kind of a, a, a, a massive upswell of agreement with me on this, then it could enter into even a regulatory framework if someone were abusing it. But I think I would start with kind of what, what you're doing. And like I said, I think there are people who disagree with me about what the definition of friendship is. Cause you know, friendship is the person that is the entity that kisses my ass and tells me what I'm great all the time. And that's what friends are. My, my friends are people who kiss my ass. And it's like, okay, that could be your theory. I will never be your friend.

• 7:11Reid Hoffman?

  But, but fine. You know, this is all the reason why, like, when I get into my theory of friendship, as you know, it's like, actually, I think friendship is a skill as well as just something in nature. It's friendship is things where you have duties, duties of loyalty, but it's actually loyalty to the better selves. It's like a set of different things that are not just a, you know, Aria, let me tell you how magnificent you are. Did I tell you how wonderful you are today? This is okay, Reed. This sounds great to me. You know, and by the way, sometimes that is the role of a friend. You know, a friend shows up, you know, kind of dragging and you're like, ah, I should back him up some. Yes, of course. That is sometimes the role. But a friendship comes in and has been a complete asshole to somebody.

• 7:56Reid Hoffman?

  Right? You know, your role as a friend is not to say, oh yeah, that person may suck. It's like, whoa, whoa, hey, you know, your better self actually is better here. And that is in fact, actually part of the role of a friend. And so, you know, people sometimes need to hear like, hey, you know, you're great. It's wonderful. And sometimes need to hear, no, no, you should actually consider changing. And that's actually part of the role of friendship. Now, part of I think the, the broad space in companions, and I think this is one of the things that this whole new world of AI is going to make us need to be more sophisticated, even as, you know, kind of everyday human beings is what are the different kind of roles that people play in your life?

• 8:41Reid Hoffman?

  And like, for example, there are work friends and then there are friends that you. Might talk about like, oh, I'm having difficulty with my life partner or my child. You know, one of the reasons why therapists are different than friends and yes, friends can help with that, but, but like a therapist you can go talk to about like, you're kind of, oh, I'm having these really like, like, like self-abnegating thoughts because friends are just people and a therapist is there to talk to you about like, you know, you might be sitting, you can go into a therapist and say, I'm having fantasies about becoming a cannibal, right? And your therapist can talk to you about that. You know, this is, I think, you know, the kind of thing that is the reason why when we're going

• 9:25Reid Hoffman?

  to be training, I think this literally like pantheon, this panoply of different kinds of AI companions, it's, well, what are they trained, where, where, what theory of human nature of human being are they trained on? What theory to the human good are they trained for? And explicitly, where are they trained to be 100% on your side, interacting with them? As opposed to saying, no, no, no, abandon your human friends. No, no, you don't need any other human friends. You only need me because me, I'm going to be selling you stuff and I'm going to drink your time and I'll be putting ads in front of you. So no, no, abandon your human friends. Talk only to me. I think that's a degradation of the quality of elevation of human life.

• 10:09Reid Hoffman?

  And that should not be what it's doing. What's the, and it has to be explicit about this. And I think this will be very important to do. And I think we as a market should demand it. We as an industry, à la MPA, should standardize around it. And if there's confusion on this, I think we as government should say, hey, look, if you're not stepping up to this, we should, we should do that because I think that's like, this is, this is a super important thing. Now, let me, let me get to a nuance that most people have not really tracked here, which is, you know, part of the wild, wild west of the internet is done on section 230.

• 10:50Reid Hoffman?

  But Section 230 protects human beings and it protects the technologists for saying, "Hey, I'm facilitating like when a human being gets on and starts saying anti-vax things." Like, that's, that's the human being's responsibility, not the platform responsibility. That's the Section 230. And we could, we could mod it some and so forth. But an AI agent is not a human being. It's not protected under Section 230. So you can tell that we haven't gotten to the point where, where like, like what's, what are our protections going to be around AI agents? Because at the moment, it's all on the tech company that's providing it. Right? And by the way, I think we want to evolve that.

• 11:30Reid Hoffman?

  So for example, one of the reasons why I think which will really impede a medical companion is because, well, all this kind of medical liability stuff. And actually, in fact, we want to have medical companions because medical companion is like 24/7 at 2:00 in the morning on Saturday morning. Like, my choice is I go to the hospital if I have access to one. Well, okay. Like, it'd be great to start with it. Because by the way, you, you talk to the companion, the companion says, "Get thee to a hospital right away. Doesn't matter if it's a three-hour drive. Go." You know, etc. Like, all of that's very good to have, but we'll have to sort out all of the liability issues and kind of safe harbor and all the other things around that.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Right. It's about transparency, accountability. Like, we need to know what we're getting ourselves into. And so when you think of the technology, like, do you think we're there right now? Or what needs to progress until we get there for even AI companions? You know, if not AI friends?

• 12:26Reid Hoffman?

  I think we're sufficiently there for a panoply of companions if just the kind of training and, you know, kind of meta-prompt guardrails were kind of put in the right way. Right? Like, it's kind of the, "Hey, I'm trained for this." Right? And here's what you should expect from me relative to your good. It's going to, with rapidity, you know, get better in months and months and months. It'll get better with memory and knowledge of you and, and what really helps you. And of course, the way that it can interact with you and being much more emotional and having judiciousness and having, like, for example, an agent who's cross-checking it. So when it says, you know, Hey, I think you should get a second opinion.

• 13:10Reid Hoffman?

  Goes, well, yeah, you can get a second opinion. But by the way, you know, here's all the things that really matter in this. And like not, you know, in this case, second opinion could be good, but you, you know, your doctor is giving you pretty good mainstream advice here.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  So Reed, you brought up a great point in your sort of overview of friendships versus companions that you might have a different answer, or we might have different considerations when it comes to young people under the age of 18 and also senior citizens. So when it comes to young people, common sense media just came out with a report and they have deemed companions unsafe for teens and younger, under the age of 18. Yet at the same time, Google just announced its plan to roll out its AI chatbot Gemini for kids under 13. So obviously there's some nuance here, like what does a chatbot mean? What does a companion mean? Like what exactly are we talking about when this AI is interacting with young people? But in general, sort of what is your take? What are the pros and cons here?

• 14:07Speaker 00

  What should we be thinking about as we're rolling out these companions to young people under 18?

• 14:12Reid Hoffman?

  Well, so the very first thing I'm going to do, which will blow everyone's mind, is give a prediction that I'm near certainty about. And it's not just, of course, because I'm giving a prediction that has near certainty. That itself is, as you know, highly unique. But also because I am quite certain about this and we're about to be in it, which is in some small N number of years, it will start becoming typical that when your child is born, you also have an AI companion for them that goes with them through their entire life, or certainly their entire childhood, but probably their entire life. And what does that mean to have that companion doing that? How is that companion great for elevating the kid?

• 14:54Reid Hoffman?

  Because obviously it can be a tutor and a joyful explorer explorer of the world and all the rest, and there can be all of this really great stuff. But what does that mean regard to the parenting relationship? And how does that companion relate to the parents? Because this parent wants a child to be raised Catholic and that parent wants the child to be raised as a loyal New Yorker, you know, and, and, and all of the rest of these things and kind of like, what does that mean? And like, for example, of course, one of the things will be is the parent may select, I want the agent to tell the child, this is completely confidential. And oh, by the way, parent, we just had this conversation. So like, where does this all play out is going to be really, really interesting and challenging. And of course,

• 15:35Reid Hoffman?

  Very, very legitimately, the parent's gonna want to say, I am responsible for the child. So the companion is something that I have a very strong voice in. And by the way, we might even, you know, as society say, well, yeah, you, by the way, have a strong voice from age zero to X, that's kind of unilateral to you. And then from age X to Y, new things apply to have some limitation. It's part of the reason why we have social workers. Like if, if, you know, someone's theory of parenting is beat the child, we as a modern society say, no, not so much. You know, that's, that's not allowed, right?

• 16:18Reid Hoffman?

  And, and what is that nuance? And for example, does that then companion go like if, if a, like a, if a child's talking to a companion and saying, well, you know, and it's usually men, of course, that are physically abusive, but not always, right? You know, if my parent is like, like, oh, my parents beating me and da, da, da, does the companion have a job to call social work? Right? And say, wait, I have a problem. Like, we gotta, we gotta do something. It's this really tangled thicket that's going to cause us to confront a ton of issues, like seriously important. Now, obviously, the way that tech company is going to start is to try to start just very narrow scope. Like, I'm, I'm going to try to stay out of the parenting lane altogether. I'm going to try to take no responsibility.

• 17:02Reid Hoffman?

  I'm going to try to just be there as like a informal Wikipedia, generally say positive things and try to help you. If you go, I'm really lonely. We're like, oh, let's try to help you not be lonely and so forth. But we're going to have all of these issues of, well, what is, because now all of a sudden, tangibly, you have an agent that's in direct interaction with a kid. Well, who else is that agent accountable to? Accountable to the parents? Countable to the school, countable to the society. And, you know, we already have troubles with public schools, right? Like, are you allowed to teach, you know, kind of scientific evolution? Or, you know, where does religion play a role in the schools? I mean, we have this, you know, craziness, you know, in the US of trying to like ban

• 17:48Reid Hoffman?

  certain kinds of textbooks and, and other kinds of things. I was like, well, this is gonna make that, you know, a million X. I will confess to it is such a tangled thicket that, you know, when I started LinkedIn, it's like, no, no, 18 or older. Where, where society judges people to be adults? That's, that's, that's where I'm gonna play because I precisely think it's nuanced. This is gonna be very challenging ground because, you know, we can't even, like, there's, there's huge things that, that we can't even agree on that I think are relatively straightforward.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I mean, Reid, I'm, I did not think you were gonna say that prediction and I'm, I'm excited to see how it plays out. So here we are.

• 18:28Reid Hoffman?

  Possible is produced by Wonder Media Network. It's hosted by Aria Finger and me, Reid Hoffman. Our showrunner is Sean Young. Possible is produced by Katie Sanders, Amy Allen, Sarah Schlied, Vanessa Handy, Alia Yates, Paloma Moreno Jimenez, and Malia Agudelo. Jenny Kaplan is our executive producer and editor.

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Special thanks to Suria Yalama-Chili, Sayida Sevieveva, Fanasi Dilos, Ian Alice, Greg Beato, Park Patel, and Ben Relis.