Besties or bestAIs? Loneliness 'epidemic' paves way for robot pals

The Internet and social media, or people's misuse and dependence on them, have been blamed for increasing loneliness, with the more recent spread of so-called generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots seen as likely to make things worse before they get better. — AFP

DUBLIN: Poet William Wordsworth might have "wandered lonely as a cloud," but two centuries on, people are more likely to be lonely because of the cloud.

The sight of people seemingly entranced by their phones or laptops, eyes down on screens and oblivious to all around them, might leave a cynic thinking such isolation is self-inflicted.