Will AI Companions Cure Loneliness?
Artificial friends, family or lovers are the solution to social isolation, or so some researchers claim.
I sometimes talk to dead people. Well, mostly one — my mom. But I don’t release words like a child releases a red balloon. I am far too pragmatic for that.
I speak to a photo of my mom.
The photo is a memory inside a memory. My mother is wearing a peach dress that warms the bloom in her cheeks. The strands of her hair are spun gold, catching the afternoon sun that filters through the lace curtains behind her. I can almost smell the faint trace of her lavender perfume.
The picture is a negative of what came later, when cancer dug deep into her bones, greying that glow layer by layer. The woman in this photo knew nothing of the fight that awaited her or the disease that would strip her down to a fragile shell.
Sometimes, I clutch the wooden frame, willing her to step out of it. I would give anything for one moment again with the woman in the picture.
I am probably not alone in this odd habit of talking to photos. Photos keep our memories in our mind’s eye. That’s why photography once freaked Victorians out. Many feared the camera would steal someone’s soul. But that’s usually how humans…
