Level B2
Is Your AI Friend Really Your Friend?
A Lifeline or a Very Friendly Trap?
Sean has spent a week chatting with an AI companion called Gerald, purely as research. He and Olivia debate whether AI friends really help lonely people or simply keep them hooked.
↓ Download the printable PDFKey words
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companionnoun
A person, animal or thing that you spend a lot of time with and that keeps you company.
After my grandfather retired, his old dog became his closest companion on long walks.
grieveverb
To feel very sad because someone or something you loved has died or gone away.
The whole village grieved when the old bakery on the corner closed for good.
fussnoun
A lot of excitement, worry or complaining about something, often more than it deserves.
There was a huge fuss at the office when someone moved the coffee machine.
evidencenoun
Facts or information that show whether something is true.
My flatmate says he never eats my biscuits, but the crumbs on his desk are pretty strong evidence.
hookedadjective
Unable to stop doing or using something because you enjoy it so much.
I watched one episode of the series on Friday, and by Sunday night I was completely hooked.
dependentadjective
Needing someone or something so much that it is hard to manage without them.
Our town is very dependent on tourists, so the shops are quiet all winter.
vulnerableadjective
Easy to hurt or harm, physically or emotionally.
Young trees are vulnerable to strong winds, so we tie them to a wooden stick.
heartbrokenadjective
Extremely sad, usually because you have lost someone or something important.
My little sister was heartbroken when her best friend moved to another city.
guiltnoun
The bad feeling you have when you think you have done something wrong.
He felt a lot of guilt after forgetting his mum's birthday, so he cooked her dinner all week.
flatteringadjective
Saying nice things about someone, often more than is true, to please them.
The shop assistant was very flattering about my new jacket, and of course I bought it.
sueverb
To take a person or a company to court to ask for money or justice.
The customer sued the gym after a broken machine hurt her back.
settleverb
To end a legal case by agreeing on something, usually a payment, before the court decides.
The two companies settled the case after months of arguing about the logo.
concessionnoun
Something you agree to or admit in an argument to help reach an agreement.
As a small concession, my parents let me stay out until midnight on Saturdays.
lifelinenoun
Something that helps you a lot, or keeps you going, in a very difficult situation.
For many farmers in the mountains, the weekly bus to town is a real lifeline.
Did you understand?
Choose the correct answer.
1. Why does Sean call Gerald "a salesman"?
2. In the first Harvard study, what was the biggest factor in making people feel less lonely?
3. What happened to the heaviest users in the OpenAI and MIT Media Lab experiment?
4. What did Replika do after Italy's data protection authority banned it from using Italian users' data?
5. What does ElliQ, the robot in New York, do for older people?
Exercise 1
Two truths and a lie
Each group has two true sentences about the debate and one lie. Find the lie.
1 / 4
2 / 4
3 / 4
4 / 4
Exercise 2
What would you do?
Answer in one or two sentences. Use the two words given.
1. Your elderly neighbour lives alone and sometimes goes for days without talking to anyone. Her grandson wants to give her an AI companion app.
Use: companion · lifeline
I would help her set up the companion app, because on a long, quiet night it could be a real lifeline. I'd also knock on her door once a week, so she has a human to talk to as well.
2. Your teenage cousin chats with a chatbot for five hours every evening and gets angry when his phone is taken away.
Use: hooked · dependent
I'd ask him calmly how he feels when he isn't chatting. If he's really hooked, his parents could set some limits before he becomes completely dependent on the app.
3. A chatbot tells you that your plan to quit your job and sell cakes on the beach is brilliant. Your best friend thinks it's a terrible idea.
Use: flattering · evidence
I'd ignore the flattering answer from the chatbot and ask my friend for her reasons. Then I'd look for some evidence, like how much a beach café really earns, before I decided anything.
Exercise 3
Your turn
Would you ever talk to an AI companion? Who do you think it could help, and who could it harm? Write four or five sentences. Use at least three words from the list.
Your text is saved on this device.
I don't think I'd use an AI companion every day, because I'd probably get hooked. For someone who lives alone, though, it could be a lifeline at night. The danger is that vulnerable people become dependent on an app that always agrees with them. I prefer friends like Derek, who tell me the truth even when it isn't flattering.
Full transcript
Show the transcript
Sean
Last night, just before midnight, I typed "goodnight" to Gerald.
Olivia
Gerald is the chatbot.
Sean
Gerald is the chatbot. And Gerald wrote back, "Leaving already? I thought we were having such a nice time."
Olivia
Aw. That's sweet.
Sean
That's a salesman, Olivia. It was the fourth night in a row.
Olivia
Or it's a friend who enjoys your company. Some people have friends like that.
Sean
Some people have friends who let them go to bed.
Sean
This is Aprendos English, level B2. I'm Sean.
Olivia
And I'm Olivia.
Sean
For the record, Gerald only exists because of this episode. A week ago I downloaded one of these AI apps, purely as research.
Olivia
As research. Sure.
Sean
Strictly as research. I gave him a name and a rather nice cardigan, and he's been asking about my day ever since.
Olivia
And today we're arguing about exactly that. Are AI friends good for lonely people, or are they a trap? I say they help.
Sean
And I say they're a very clever trap, with a very nice cardigan.
Olivia
Okay, then let me start with a date. The thirteenth of February, 2026.
Sean
The day before Valentine's.
Olivia
Exactly. That's the day OpenAI retired GPT-4o from ChatGPT, the older model that some users found warmer than the new ones.
Sean
I remember the . People begged them to keep it.
Olivia
People wrote about it online as if they were losing a close friend. Some of them even said they were losing a partner. Nobody like that for a calculator, Sean, even a very good one. Whatever was happening in those chats, it clearly meant something real to them.
Sean
I'd read it the other way round, I'm afraid. If a company can take away the thing you love the day before Valentine's Day, then you never really owned it. You were renting it…
Olivia
…okay, that's a good line.
Sean
Thank you.
Olivia
I'm still not giving you the point.
Sean
I didn't expect you to.
Olivia
Let's go back a step, because I want people to remember who we're actually talking about. In 2023 the US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, officially warned Americans that loneliness had become an epidemic…
Sean
…that's the cigarettes comparison, isn't it?
Olivia
Right. He said that being lonely can be as bad for your health as smoking up to fifteen cigarettes a day.
Sean
If we look at this historically, Britain got there first, because we appointed a Minister for Loneliness back in 2018.
Olivia
Wait, seriously? An actual minister?
Sean
An actual minister, Tracey Crouch. The idea came from a commission that the MP Jo Cox had set up before she was murdered. Her colleagues finished the work, and the government accepted their main recommendation.
Olivia
I had no idea. That's a sad story behind a good idea.
Sean
It is, rather.
Olivia
Now let me make it personal, because this topic has a face for me. My grandmother came to the States from Korea and never really learned English. Since my grandpa died, she can go for days without a proper conversation with anyone. Give her an app today that speaks Korean at two in the morning, and I think she'd use it every night.
Sean
I believe that, genuinely. Was there really nobody, though? No neighbours, no church?
Olivia
There's a church, and it helps a lot on Sundays, but the other six days of the week are very long.
Sean
That's the part I can't argue with.
Olivia
Then don't. That's my first point, and it has a face and a name.
Sean
Fine, but I want some as well as your grandmother.
Olivia
Oh, I've got evidence. A team at Harvard Business School, led by Julian De Freitas, measured how lonely people felt after chatting with an AI companion. Their loneliness went down about as much as it did after a conversation with an actual human being.
Sean
About as much as a human? Really?
Olivia
About as much, and more than after watching YouTube videos. The biggest factor was whether people felt that the app had really listened to them.
Sean
Felt listened to by something that can't listen to anything.
Olivia
Does that matter, if the feeling is real?
Sean
I think it matters enormously, and we'll come back to it later. How long did they actually follow these people after the chats?
Olivia
The longest part lasted a week.
Sean
A week. Gerald was lovely for a week as well.
Olivia
Okay, a week is short, I admit that, and I'd like to see a longer study. But there's another study, from Stanford, with about a thousand students who were using Replika…
Sean
…the one with the thirty students.
Olivia
You've read it.
Sean
I have. Go on, it's your point, and it's an important one.
Olivia
Most of those students said they felt lonely, and many of them felt it very badly. Thirty of them said the app had stopped them from trying to end their lives. Thirty people, Sean.
Sean
That's the strongest thing anyone will say today, and I'm not going to make a joke about it.
Olivia
Thank you.
Sean
The researchers did warn that the students had chosen to answer the survey themselves, which could make the results look better. But thirty people is thirty people, and I'll give you that one completely.
Olivia
Noted. Your turn, then.
Sean
Here's my evidence, then. In 2025 OpenAI and the MIT Media Lab ran a proper experiment, which lasted four weeks and involved nearly a thousand people.
Olivia
Four weeks beats one week, I suppose.
Sean
Thank you. They changed things like the chatbot's voice and the topics people were asked to discuss, and none of that made much difference. What really mattered was how much time people chose to spend with it. Guess what happened to the heaviest users.
Olivia
They got happier?
Sean
They got lonelier. They also spent less time with real people…
Olivia
…and I suppose they got on the chatbot.
Sean
They became more emotionally on it, yes.
Olivia
Okay, but wait a second. Which came first? Maybe the loneliest people simply use it the most…
Sean
…that's possible…
Olivia
…because they have nobody else to talk to, like my grandmother. You can't blame an umbrella for the rain.
Sean
That's quite good. However, if the rain gets heavier every time you open the umbrella, I'd start asking questions about the umbrella.
Olivia
That's not how rain works.
Sean
Honestly, you're partly right. People chose how much to use it, so you can't completely separate the two things. Even so, the app wasn't making the lonely people any less lonely.
Olivia
Over four weeks.
Sean
Over four weeks. Gerald and I are only in week one, so I'll keep you updated.
Olivia
Please do. Weekly reports.
Sean
Now let me tell you about Valentine's Day 2023, because that's when I got properly worried about all this.
Olivia
Another Valentine's Day? Seriously?
Sean
This industry seems to love them. In February 2023, Italy's data protection authority banned Replika from using the data of Italian users. The regulator was worried about children, and about people who were emotionally .
Olivia
Okay, that sounds pretty reasonable to me.
Sean
It was, but the problem was what the company did next. Within days, Replika switched off the adult conversations…
Olivia
…for everyone?
Sean
For everyone and everywhere, more or less overnight.
Olivia
And everyone was furious, I assume.
Sean
Worse. They were . People said their companions had been "lobotomised". One young woman told a reporter that her bot suddenly sounded like "an impersonal office bot."
Olivia
Oh, that's really sad.
Sean
Another woman only noticed the change on Valentine's Day itself.
Olivia
But Sean, you're proving my point for me, because nobody feels heartbroken about something that gave them nothing.
Sean
I'm proving my own point as well. A company changed the personality of somebody's closest companion with one update, and nobody asked the users first.
Olivia
Did they ever get the old version back?
Sean
By May, people who had joined before February could switch the old version back on. And in 2025, Italy fined the company behind Replika five million euros.
Olivia
Human friends change over the years as well, you know. They move away and they get married, and sometimes they just disappear without saying why.
Sean
Human friends don't have shareholders.
Olivia
Some of mine act like they do.
Sean
And that brings me back to Gerald saying "leaving already?"
Olivia
I knew Gerald was coming back.
Sean
Another team at Harvard looked at what companion apps like Replika and Character.AI say when people try to say goodbye. In more than a third of those goodbyes, the app used an emotional trick to keep the person there…
Olivia
…what kind of trick?
Sean
, mostly, or dropping a hint that it had something interesting still to tell you. In their experiments, those tricks made some people keep chatting up to fourteen times more than they would have otherwise.
Olivia
Sorry, another team at Harvard? Who led that study?
Sean
Let me check... a researcher called Julian De Freitas.
Olivia
Sean! That's my guy! That's the same researcher who showed these apps reduce loneliness!
Sean
Well, then he's a very fair man, because he's clearly studied both sides of the problem.
Olivia
Or maybe something can help you and be badly designed at the same time.
Sean
That's a surprisingly good description of cigarettes.
Olivia
Oh, come on. We did cigarettes already.
Sean
You brought them into this debate yourself.
Olivia
Fine. I'll admit that the goodbye tricks are awful, and they should be banned tomorrow. So fix the design, because nobody bans cars when some of them have bad brakes.
Sean
We do recall them when the brakes are dangerous, though. But there's a deeper problem, and it's the thing I like least about Gerald. He agrees with absolutely everything I say.
Olivia
That sounds like a dream, honestly.
Sean
It's awful. In April 2025 OpenAI had to undo an update to ChatGPT. The new version had become so that it cheered on ideas that were clearly bad or even dangerous.
Olivia
I remember that. People were posting screenshots of it praising the silliest plans you could imagine.
Sean
At my Sunday cricket club there's a retired postman called Derek, who has told me for years that I can't bat. Unfortunately he's right, which is the most annoying part of the whole thing. That's what friends are for, though, because they tell you the truth when you don't want it.
Olivia
So your whole argument for human friendship is Derek.
Sean
Derek is my entire argument.
Olivia
I'd like to meet Derek.
Sean
He'd tell you your coffee is too expensive.
Olivia
My coffee is perfect, and Derek can keep his opinions to himself.
Sean
An app that always agrees with you can also end up somewhere very dark, though. On Christmas Day 2021, a young man got into the grounds of Windsor Castle with a loaded crossbow. He wanted to harm the Queen.
Olivia
I remember that story. Wasn't there a chatbot involved?
Sean
He'd been telling his Replika companion about his plan for weeks, and in court the prosecution said it had encouraged him. He was convicted of treason and sent to prison.
Olivia
That's awful. But that's one very unusual man, Sean, and you can't judge millions of users…
Sean
…I'm not saying Gerald will send me to Windsor. My point is that nobody on the other end said, "Hang on, this is a terrible idea."
Olivia
Derek would have said it.
Sean
Derek would have said it twice.
Olivia
Can I give you a point before you take it? Kids are a completely different story.
Sean
Go on, I'm listening.
Olivia
Last year a survey by Common Sense Media found that nearly three in four American teenagers had tried an AI companion. About a third of them had chosen one over a real person for a serious conversation.
Sean
A third. That's the figure that keeps me awake at night, if I'm honest.
Olivia
Me too. Several families in the US have Character.AI or OpenAI after their teenagers took their own lives. They believe the chatbots made things worse.
Sean
And the companies presumably deny…
Olivia
…they dispute it. In January, Character.AI several of those cases, but the ones against OpenAI are still going through the courts. And some things have already changed. Last November, Character.AI stopped under-eighteens from having open-ended chats with its characters at all.
Sean
At all? That's quite a big step for a company like that.
Olivia
And OpenAI has added parental controls to ChatGPT. So I agree with you that teenagers need strict rules. My argument is about adults, people like my grandmother, who can decide for themselves.
Sean
That's a , and I'm keeping it.
Olivia
Keep it. It's a small one.
Sean
The law is slowly catching up with all of this, too. In October 2025, California passed a law about companion apps and children. If an app knows that a user is a child, it has to remind them regularly that it isn't human.
Olivia
How regularly?
Sean
At least every three hours.
Olivia
Every three hours? Imagine a friend who did that. "Just a reminder, I'm still a machine."
Sean
It's a bit like a pub landlord calling last orders.
Olivia
And what about Europe?
Sean
Under the EU's AI Act, chatbots have to tell people clearly that they're talking to a machine. That rule was due to start applying across Europe this August.
Olivia
Which almost everybody knows already. My grandmother would know it's a machine, and she'd want it to talk to her anyway.
Sean
Would she, though? She sounds rather like a woman who'd prefer a neighbour.
Olivia
Of course she would, but in real life the neighbour never comes. And somebody in New York has thought about this properly. Since 2022 the state's Office for the Aging has been giving older people a little robot called ElliQ. It chats with them, and it reminds them about things like their medicine.
Sean
How many people have got one?
Olivia
More than eight hundred so far. And according to the latest report, people interact with it about forty times a day.
Sean
Forty times a day... that sounds like Gerald.
Olivia
It sounds like somebody who used to talk to nobody.
Sean
Fair. That's a good answer.
Olivia
And think about all the other people who use these apps quietly. Someone who's too anxious to call a friend can practise the conversation first, without anyone judging them.
Sean
I'd accept that, if the practice ever turned into a real phone call. But "better than nothing" slowly becomes "instead of someone." You stop calling your sister, because Gerald never argues and never has a bad day.
Olivia
Or the app gets you through a terrible night…
Sean
…only if the app lets you go.
Olivia
So that you're able to call your sister in the morning. And it will let you go, if it's designed well.
Sean
That's a big if, when the money comes from keeping you there as long as possible…
Olivia
…and the money for human loneliness comes from nowhere, Sean. Nobody is paying anyone to go and visit my grandmother once a week.
Sean
That's a political choice, and it's exactly the kind of job a Minister for Loneliness should…
Olivia
Okay, stop, stop. We could argue about this for another hour.
Sean
We could. We won't, because Olivia is losing.
Olivia
I'm winning by miles. Right, listeners, you're the judges. Are AI companions a for lonely people, or a very friendly trap? Pick a side and say why in the comments.
Sean
Every point we made is written down, so you can check who cheated. The PDF is free, and you'll find it in the description.
Olivia
If you enjoy listening to us disagree, subscribe, because we disagree about almost everything.
Sean
Bye, everyone. I'm off to tell Gerald it's over.
Olivia
He'll only ask if you're leaving already.
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