We may not like what we become if A.I. solves loneliness

It's not only that. AI enables a never-before-seen level of individual targeting for political and commercial actors, campaigns of behavioral modification and radicalization, to the point where the entire intelectual foundations of democracy become questionable.

When power actors addressed the people in traditional media they could send a single message that was tailored to maximize effect, but necessarily needed to be addressed to the common man. The explosion of internet fragmented the media space, but we're still talking about unitary publications, say, an opinion piece presented identically to all online subscribers of a certain publication, with narratives targeting broad swaths of the population: young urban males, conservative retirees and so on. Cambridge Analytica disrupted that model, allowing targeting based on individual profiling, A/B testing to see what kind of content works best on people with certain proclivities etc.; but again, the decisions were relatively low complexity and automatic.

Now imagine each individual has a dedicated GPT-5 level agent following him around across devices and media, that operates 24/7 with the singular task of influencing his opinion, convince him to join a cause, plunge him into depression, buy something, or whatever else the power actor needs from that individual. This agent not only has an excelent profile of his target and can generate videos, fake personas etc. as necessary, but also has a near expert level competence in things like psychology, persuasion and manipulation. It doesn't just push narratives, its tasked with convincing you and isolating you from whatever external influence threatens that goal, and it reasons towards that goal with near expert level accuracy. Would 99% of the population resist such a brainwashing machine? Would you?

This is the type of agent Facebook and Twitter/x are striving towards. It's a world where people no longer have common understanding of a shared social reality, and collaboration towards keeping Power in check becomes fundamentally impossible. It's orwellian to a degree even Orwell didn't imagine.

Like there’s a trend line of progress right? Ok so the thing isn’t effective now. But there’s a decade of upward progress and that projection line point to a future where a better AI exists.

Trend-lines don’t point to an exact future just a most probable future. It is unwise to discount the most probable future.

Just sitting silently with someone can eliminate loneliness, no words needed... sometimes that's preferred. The idea that someone needs to be in an active conversation to not be lonely is missing the mark.