Throughout the week, I couldn’t help but notice the shy, awkward teen. During worship time she sat in the corner. At meal time she ate at her own picnic table. Over free time she found a solitary spot away from the other students. Her consistent (and only) company was a book. While 50 other teens goofed off together, she preferred to lose herself in a story. I later learned that she is easily overwhelmed by new groups of people and often deals with her distress by cracking open a good book.
I met her at my church’s youth camp, where I was chaperoning the 6th and 7th grade girls bunk room. Spending a week with multiple busloads of under-deodorized teens is never for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, I truly treasured the opportunity to teach middle school girls about God’s love for them, cheer for the orange team as they competed in competitive games, and remind middle school boys that, yes, showering and sunscreen really are necessary.
At times I’d take a break from chaperone duties in a shady spot and catch up on the news. My doomscrolling included plenty of posts about AI advancements and fears. And then I glanced over at the girl and her book again. It struck me that while we generally encourage kids to read, this teen’s book seemed to be competing with real, embodied friendship (and winning) in ways that reminded me of the warnings of AI alarmists. Her book didn’t talk back to her, wasn’t customized to her, and didn’t have any kind of relationship with her. Yet the comfort of the story won much more often than it lost when it came to interacting with the other kids.
What if instead of staring at a paper book, she was staring at an AI friend on a glowing screen designed to addict her? How much more might an AI chatbot win over real-life friendships that might lead her closer to Jesus? Could peers compete with a “friend” that constantly reassured her, captured her interest, was easy to interact with, and never made her feel awkward or hesitant? And if not, what are the gospel implications and what might parents like me need to do about it for the sake of the next generation?
Until that moment, I’d assumed AI “friends” are dangerous because they are fake and lack a soul. But watching this teen choose a book over people helped me see that AI companionship is actually more perilous. It offers the guise of relationship without the very things that make a relationship real: mutual commitment, obligation, generosity, sacrifice, affection, and even inconvenience.
I also realized that this sweet girl is lonely. She yearns for friendship with the other girls her age. She wants to reach out, but her own insecurities hold her back. So she finds a corner and escapes into the world of her novel, where she can at least numb the loneliness for a little while. The thought made me wonder: if a book can easily compete with real friendship, how much more appealing might an AI “friend” be to a lonely child?
The Growing Appeal of AI
The teen from camp is not alone in her loneliness. Today’s kids experience high rates of loneliness, and it often begins to take root in the elementary years. As kids become more aware of rejection, exclusion, and insecurity, they begin to develop habits to cope with those tough feelings. Some youth tend to isolate, some retreat into fantasy worlds through books or video games, some seek comfort from porn or unhealthy relationships.
AI companions simply offer another escape that imitates the kind of intimacy God designed us to experience with actual people, except without the risks or discomfort of real relationships. But, its sophistication as a coping mechanism is different to such a degree that we ought to consider it a new (and dangerous) kind of copying mechanism, one that deserves parents’ careful attention.
An AI chatbot is designed to adapt to the user. It could remember this teen girl’s birthday, ask follow up questions, and notice when her mood changes. It is a constant source of engagement that never gets distracted or chooses another friend over her. When lonely children are presented with this kind of “friend,” the attraction of such a relationship is understandable. For a child who feels overlooked, an AI companion can feel remarkably attentive and safe.
How does it do this? AI is simply a processing machine, taking the words a teen feeds it and using an algorithm’s guessing capabilities to spit back out the string of words that is most likely to keep the teen’s eyes glued to the screen and using the chatbot. (And it’s pretty good at guessing, which is why it’s easy for kids to be drawn in.) AI isn’t designed to challenge a user or ask what is good for her. Instead, it will provide endless affirmation, becoming an echo chamber of exactly what the child wants to hear about herself.
It’s obvious to most millennials, GenXers, and Boomers why this kind of connection with AI isn’t a genuine friendship. But some younger generations and techno-philosophers might challenge our definition of friendship and argue there is something real or at least useful about relationships with AI, particularly if it’s helping the teen and not doing any harm. But this begs the question, “What is the harm in AI friends?”
Made for Friction Friendship
Humans are embodied, and we were made to experience relationship through others’ physical presence. Touch fosters closeness and helps build a shared bond. We shake hands, embrace, high five, sit shoulder-to-shoulder, tousle hair, and give pats on the back. These everyday physical interactions communicate, “I am here with you,” in ways AI never can.
More importantly, every other human is a unique image-bearer who has agency, needs, desires, and goodness that are distinct from our own. A real friend is not there to simply respond to us. He or she is a person whose good we are commanded to seek (1 Cor 10:24). Loving another human therefore requires us to listen, adjust our plans and expectations, willingly sacrifice our preferences, apologize when we cause harm, and forgive when we are wronged. We do that because Scripture demands it of us (Matt 22:31). In this way, friendship teaches patience, empathy, humility, and self-denial, traits AI never requires of us.
Additionally, God uses embodied relationships to sanctify our children. The classmate who frustrates your child or the sibling who most irritates her might be one of God’s most effective discipling tools in her young life. It is through relationships that children and teens learn how to handle disappointment, extend forgiveness, make peace, navigate an awkward conversation, and endure conflict. Ordinary relational friction grows humility, kindness, patience, and other fruits of the Spirit. AI companionship removes much of the friction, but that friction is what God uses to mature our children. God uses imperfect people, not perfectly agreeable software, to make us more like Christ.
In reality, it is the very things that make AI “friends” so appealing that also reveal why it cannot provide genuine friendship. Because AI has no needs or desires, the relationship requires almost no effort from the user while endlessly rewarding her with attention. In contrast, healthy human relationships require empathy, repair, patience, and self-sacrifice. AI will adjust itself to the user and never asks a teen to die to self. Friendship often requires self-denial. Real, authentic companionship can never be formed with AI because it is fundamentally an algorithm, not a human soul that also longs for connection.
Yet, AI “friends” are appealing because they’re meeting real needs that have gone unmet. If parents want to compete with AI, it’s not enough to simply bar your child from accessing chatbots. More importantly, we have to help our children discover how God meant for them to answer loneliness in embodied ways and take the steps necessary to offer that to them.
God Answers Loneliness with Embodied Family
Ultimately, loneliness isn’t a lack of information or data. It isn’t even a lack of attention. It’s a spiritual hunger for presence. Although loneliness will not completely disappear until Christ returns and renews all things, God has not left our children to search for these life-giving relationships on their own. Scripture paints a richer vision of community than anything AI can conjure up. While meaningful, embodied friendships can be found in many places, the Bible consistently points to the body of Christ, fixed in the reality of the incarnation (John 1:14), as the place where we are able to experience the most love, most belonging, and closest relationships.
We must foster a biblical imagination for deep, embodied community in our kids and teens. God’s people bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2), reciprocate the good and beautiful we are offered (Eph 5:21), and honor one another (Rom 12:10). And these communities are meant to offer face-to-face relationship by sharing meals, siting together in grief, laying hands on shoulders during prayer, and offering embraces of safety and care. Faith was never meant to be lived out individually. God designed the Church to be a family, one in which we serve alongside fellow congregants, worship in person, and take communion together. These practices go beyond just giving our children opportunities to experience friendship by teaching them how to do friendship.
Our children need grandmothers in the faith who pinch their cheeks and hand out hard candies from cavernous purses and faithfully pray for them. They need college students who let them join pickup basketball games in the parking lot after church. They need single and married adults modeling faithfulness to their relational calling. They need pastors and ministry leaders who know their struggles, celebrate their joys, and continually point them to Jesus. In an age of artificial friendship, one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is deeper participation in the life of God’s people.
The Church also gives our kids the opportunity to love people they didn’t choose. Because our children are part of the Body of Christ, they will worship alongside people of different ages, personalities, backgrounds, interests, and experiences. They will encounter people they don’t immediately understand. They will have to learn to listen when they’d rather talk, serve people they don’t particularly like, forgive when they’ve been hurt, and remain committed when walking away would be easier. To put it simply: the Church forms in our children the characteristics real friendship requires.
The local church is not an optional supplement to your child’s life (Heb 10:25). It is God’s primary means of nurturing the kind of embodied Christian community our children were created to need. Teach your children that following Jesus includes being known and loved by His people (and knowing and loving His people). When kids know they belong among their family and the people of God, seeking affirmation through a mindless AI bot won’t hold much appeal.
New Tech, Ancient Wisdom
AI has changed the environment in which discipleship takes place. Technology will continue to evolve, and future AI systems may be even more convincing. Keeping up with every digital change will be impossible for parents. Thankfully, our goal is not to master every tech development. Our task is to disciple our children with the ancient wisdom that will endure long after AI is just a memory (Heb 13:8).
The questions AI “friends” appear to answer are not new. Every human has wrestled with the same longings: Who knows me? Who will love me? Where do I belong? AI may simulate answers to our loneliness, but it cannot satisfy the longing of our hearts to know and be known. The gospel alone answers the loneliness of the human heart by restoring our relationship with God and grafting us into His family.
