Friend Replaces Human Interaction with AI

What to do if your friends are confiding in ChatGPT instead of you. In February, the TikTok creator Brittany Panzer posted a video over five minutes detailing the unraveling of her friendship. There was no disagreement, no blowup, not even ghosting. Panzer felt she’d lost her friend to ChatGPT. At first, Panzer’s friend used artificial intelligence for relationship advice and casually mentioned that she’d consulted the technology in conversation. But over time, Panzer suspected her friend was questioning her own emotions, and perhaps the counsel of friends too; eventually, she hardly recognized the person on the other end of the phone. “Rather than talking to friends, she talked to ChatGPT,” Panzer says in the video. “After all, in her mind, it was able to do what no human could: be an objective best friend in her pocket.” The rise of chatbot “friends” Increasingly, people are outsourcing the basic functions of friendship to AI, and getting reassurance, advice, and camaraderie from the likes of ChatGPT, Replika, Claude, and Copilot. According to a 2025 scientific paper, people commonly interact with AI to address loneliness, to self-disclose about mental health and personal issues, and to garner emotional support and empathy. It’s easy to see why: The technology is always available and generally says what people want to hear. But once you’ve become accustomed to on-demand validation, the appeal of human conversation — with its mess and imperfection and two-sidedness — can start to wane. Although they may mimic human responses, AI chatbots are not, in fact, human, and a lot of humans find them off-putting. The Supreme Court broke democracy by saying the quiet part out loud A decades-long plan to abolish the Electoral College may finally pay off The backlash to Billie Eilish’s vegan comments explains a lot about the American left (and everyone else) Take a mental break with the newest Vox crossword How a “super El Niño” could create record-breaking warming This is the title for the native ad Please don’t overthink this one. They grow up together, but are twins destined to share a social network? After decades of social isolation, people are realizing proximity is a resource. Insects may feel pain. Do you have a moral duty to protect them from harm? How to handle secondhand stress, financial strain, and more. Most people say friendship is important to them, but often act in ways that contradict that sentiment. This is the title for the native ad