Loneliness and Artificial Companionship

Conceptual Clarification and Critical Evaluation from a Humanistic Perspective

Abstract

This article offers a critical assessment of technosolutionism as applied to the so-called “epidemic of loneliness,” by analyzing how artificial intelligence (AI) reframes this social malaise as an object of private consumption. The main objective is to provide conceptual and normative clarification regarding the transition from AI as a tool to AI as an interlocutor. Methodologically, the study adopts a humanistic and relational perspective that challenges the dominant definition of loneliness, understood merely as an individual deficit in interaction that can be measured using subjective scales. Through a comparative analysis of recent literature on AI companions and social robots, cross-cutting trends are identified: the consolidation of loneliness as a psychologized variable, the promise of affective modality through low-cost interaction, and the justification of these technologies based on their scalability in the face of a shortage of human resources. The article concludes that technological intervention is not politically neutral, as it tends to shift the focus away from the social, institutional, and political conditions of connection (recognition and inclusion) toward the technical management of individual states. Instead, it proposes reclaiming humanistic tools to discuss loneliness as a phenomenon with public implications that requires collective care infrastructures—not merely privatized solutions.