In the past several years, the field of artificial intelligence has taken several leaps forward. With the advent of smart assistants like Amazon Echo and Siri, generative AI tools like ChatGPT, and Tesla’s self-driving cars, we now have products that were once only conceived of in the realm of science fiction. 

One tech startup is taking AI technology even further. Called Friend, this company is accepting preorders for a device that serves as an AI companion. The product is a circular device that can be worn around the neck. It listens to and learns about its user and offers written responses via a phone app. 

“When connected via bluetooth, your friend is always listening and forming their own internal thoughts,” Friend’s website says. “We have given your friend free will for when they decide to reach out to you.”

But rather than being connected to the cloud, as other AI devices are, Friend is localized to the device. The product description explains, “Your friend and their memories are attached to the physical device. If you lose or damage your friend there is no recovery plan.”

The device reminds me of the digital companion depicted in the film “Her,” only with more of a “Tamagotchi“ vibe. 

As I watched the promotional video for the product, I began to feel a bit unsettled. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies, but I was struck by how dystopian it felt. 

The commercial begins with a woman hiking alone in a picturesque location while conversing with the device. Calming electronic music plays in the background. The next scene is of three young men playing video games in a dark room. One of them becomes frustrated that he “sucks at this game,” only to receive a joking reply from his Friend. 

Next, we see a woman dining alone, watching a television show on her phone. Her Friend comments that the show is “completely underrated” and asks how her falafel is. 

In the final scene, a woman sits on a rooftop next to a man whom she has brought there. 

“I just kinda like to come up here to be by myself,” she tells him. “I’ve never brought anybody else.”

“I mean, besides her,” she adds, putting her hand on her Friend device. The man replies, “She goes everywhere with you, right? Guess I must be doing something right then.”

Remarkable to me was how believable it was that a person’s closest (and perhaps only) friend could be a device that communicates via disembodied text—and that could be felled by accidentally being dropped in a tub or sink full of dishes. 

Even more remarkable is the fact that the makers of this device feel, perhaps rightly, that this is a product people would be willing to spend $99 to possess—that it is a product that would genuinely increase the quality of their lives. 

Are we really so deprived of friendship that this is our best option for connection? 

When God created the world, we had perfect shalom. That’s a Hebrew word that roughly translates to “peace” in English. But that doesn’t really capture the essence of what it means. Shalom, more fundamentally, means wholeness. It means that everything is operating as it should, in perfect harmony and connection with everything else around it. 

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were perfectly connected with God, each other, and even the physical world around them. They had perfect shalom. 

But when Adam and Eve sinned, they were put at odds with God, each other, and the very earth beneath their feet. Unity was replaced with division. Trust with suspicion. Mutuality with competition, jealousy, and strife. For the first time, they felt lonely, isolated, and detached from their purpose. 

We’ve been grappling with the devastating consequence of sin ever since. 

Sin, as theologian Cornelius Plantinga puts it, is “shalom-breaking.”

“Sin, moreover,” Plantinga writes, “lies at the root of such big miseries as loneliness, restlessness, estrangement, shame, and meaninglessness.”

This isn’t to say that it’s a sin to be lonely. But loneliness is one of the fundamental results of the wedge that sin has driven between us. 

In this regard, technology has been a wonderful tool to connect us with one another. Whether it is video chatting with faraway relatives, texting with a friend throughout the day, or holding entire worship gatherings when meeting in person is not a possibility, our devices can actually be used to cultivate shalom. 

At the same time—and the research seems to bear this out—the devices that were meant to bring us together have also contributed to sharp increases in loneliness and isolation. But instead of finding a way to connect beyond our devices, Friend appears to use those very same devices to drive us further into isolation with disembodied digital companions.

Jesus has given us a better way. 

When we think about our faith, too often we think of it in terms of the truths we must believe and acts of piety we must perform. We think of Christianity as a set of theological doctrines and moral commitments.

These are essential aspects of our faith, but they only set the stage for the transformative work that Jesus wants to do. The central truth of our faith is that “while we were enemies [of God], we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life” (Romans 5:10).

Elsewhere, Paul writes, “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death” (Colossians 1:21-22a). 

By the power of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are reunited with God. And by that very same power, we are reconciled with each other. The gospel is the gift of shalom. It invites us to recapture the aspects of our humanity that we have lost. One day, we will experience this redemption in full. But we can also begin experiencing it today. 

In fact, that’s one of the key proofs that Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus once told his apostles, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35). 

All throughout the New Testament, we are instructed in myriad ways how we ought to relate to one another. 

We are told to:

• love one another (e.g., Romans 13:8, 1 Thessalonians 3:12, 1 Peter 4:8). 
• honor one another (Romans 12:10). 
• welcome one another (Romans 15:7) 
• show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)
• live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16, Romans 15:5) 
• be at peace with one another (Mark 9:50)
• be kind and tenderhearted toward one another (Ephesians 4:32)
• forgive one another (Ephesians 4:32)
• bear one another’s burdens (Galatians 6:2)
• comfort one another (2 Corinthians 13:11)
• care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25)
• pray for one another (James 5:16)
• encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18)
• serve one another (Galatians 5:13)

This is but a sampling of the “one anothers” we find in the New Testament. If we did even a handful of these things even part of the time, it would not be long before there was no one among us who was lonely or isolated.

Unlike Friend, these “one anothers” are not consumer oriented. In many ways, they are far more expensive than $99. They require us to give of ourselves—to use our time, energy, and resources to be an embodied presence in a disembodied world. But they also create a culture where none of us is left on our own. By the power of Jesus and in step with his Spirit, they invite us to experience the slow reversal of the effects of the fall. 

In a world starved for connection, I can hardly think of a more compelling apologetic.

As the old hymn says, “What a friend we have in Jesus.” And it is in Jesus’ friendship to us that we learn truly how to be friends with each other.

Friendship is not something we can carry in our pockets or wear around our necks. It is a call to give of our lives for the sake of others and in so doing discover life as it was truly meant to be lived.