Millions of people—especially youth—are turning to AI chatbots for companionship. Character.AI, which is valued at $1 billion, has 20 million users who spend more than an hour a day on average talking to its bots. The app allows users as young as 13—and its most popular bots appeal to teens—to use settings such as “High School Simulator” and “Your boy best friend who has a secret crush on you.”

In a study of American teenagers aged 13–17, 72% said they had used AI companion chatbots, with 52% chatting regularly, and 13% daily. 31% of these teens said AI conversations are as, or more, satisfying than real-life ones. Almost one in five spend as much time with AI companions as they do with their human friends—or more. Last year, a 14-year-old boy who spent hours a day obsessively talking to a bot committed suicide.

As for US adults, 19% have chatted with AI chatbots designed to act as romantic partners, with young adults (18–30) twice as likely to do so than older ones. Among those users, 21% said they prefer it to a real romantic relationship!

“Friend AI” backlash

While these bots have an expanding user base, there has also been quite a backlash.

Thanks to the 11,000 ads plastered all over NYC subway stations, an AI companion called Friend has become famous. It is a necklace that listens to all of your conversations and tries to participate via text.

The ads have slogans like, “someone who listens, responds and supports you,” and, “I’ll never leave dirty dishes in the sink.” They also leave lots of white space, which subway riders have obligingly filled in with feedback:

• “AI is not your friend” and “AI would not care if you lived or died”
• “Stop profiting off of loneliness” and “Exploits struggling people!”
• “Surveillance capitalism”

Friend’s 22-year-old CEO, Avi Schiffman, spent $1 million on the ads. He is now trying to play this negative feedback as intentional. According to him, “Capitalism is the greatest artistic medium.” But the graffiti makes it clear that growing numbers of people can tell there is something very wrong with this system. There have only been about 3,000 orders for this necklace despite all the “free speech” he purchased. That’s less than one unit per three ads.

What’s behind all this?

Creativity is at the core of what it means to be human. But under this system, we have to sell our ability to create and interact with nature to enrich someone else. This alone makes work exhausting instead of energizing. On top of that, as the crisis of capitalism deepens, we have to work more for less pay, leaving us with less time, energy, and money to spend on social activities.

Capitalism forces a financial element into all of our relationships, which makes them more fraught and transactional. Parents, forced to work at exhausting jobs they hate, miss out on spending time with their children and often end up resenting the burdens of parenthood. Dating is considered a “market,” and many are stuck in romantic relationships they can’t leave lest they end up homeless.

Even if we have the time and money, capitalism makes connecting with other people difficult. Since we are forced to sell our labor power to survive, we become “the most wretched of commodities,” to use Marx’s words. Meanwhile, the things we create rule over us. Even before software could replace your boyfriend, capitalism turned people into things, and things into people. We feel like commodities, and that creates huge pressure to see other workers the same way, which poisons virtually every human interaction.

No wonder so many of us feel a crushing, intense loneliness. This is what is behind the demand for companion chatbots. But it also explains the wave of resentment against this technology. What we’re seeing is really a deepening disgust for the capitalists and their sick system. A widespread fightback is coming to the US, on a scale the enemy has never seen.