Former Yahoo CEO and early Google engineer Marissa Mayer (Marissa Mayer) have recently faced considerable criticism for their use of AI. In an interview discussing her new application Dazzle, Mayer highlighted a use case that she believed exemplified the product's capabilities: this AI assistant, which learns from users' photo albums, helped her identify three key points about her 10-year-old daughter for her school birthday presentation, describing her as "empathetic, creative, and fond of animals."

This description is quite vague, like some general talk about zodiac fortunes – it could probably apply to many 10-year-old children.

Some onlookers were surprised by this. Progressive activist Leah Greenberg stated, "The fact that Marissa Mayer voluntarily shared this information with reporters is a clear indication of the deep divide that has already arisen between Silicon Valley culture and other human societies."

Perhaps the reason Mayer has encountered so much backlash is that people have repeatedly seen wealthy billionaires who live in comfort suggesting that parenting—one of the most challenging tasks in life, requiring patience, humility, and kindness—be outsourced to a computer that is utterly incapable of understanding human emotions.

There were early signs of this sense of frustration. Last year, Sam Altman (Sam Altman) said on a national television show to Jimmy Fallon (Jimmy Fallon), a late-night show host and Bored Ape owner, "I can't imagine... how one would raise a newborn without ChatGPT." The public didn't seem to buy this statement either, but Altman seemed unimpressed by the negative feedback. A few months ago, he stated on X that a "cool use case" for ChatGPT Work would be to create a podcast to talk about your child's upcoming birthday or a football game, and to "explain your child's interests." This statement also met with widespread ridicule, with one comment asking bluntly, "Why don't you just talk to your own child?"

After the report was published, Mayer wrote a long post on X to defend herself. She stated that she did not rely on Dazzle to help her understand her child, but rather to test what the prototype product could achieve. She said that this application rediscovered those "forgotten kindergarten works" photos, such as a "snake venom extractor" or a "sand cat playground," to showcase her daughter's creativity and her care for animals.

That certainly makes sense. However, in the same interview, Mayer also mentioned that people can use her AI to share the mental burden of deciding on a theme for a child’s birthday party, among other things. She said she has used this app to arrange playdates for her daughter, book family vacation activities, and decide on costumes for Halloween. She even suggested that her AI assistant could coordinate with her husband’s AI assistant. When asked if imagining such a “friction-free future planned by AI” was depressing, Mayer replied, “I really haven’t thought about that question seriously.”

These tech leaders seem to regard opponents as a niche and angry fringe group. However, a study by the Pew Research Center ( Pew Research Center ) shows that 50% of American adults believe that AI will weaken people's ability to build meaningful relationships. Only 5% of respondents said that AI would make it easier to establish these connections.

However, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg ( Mark Zuckerberg ), like his peers in Silicon Valley, also envisioned a world where social needs are met through AI.

Last year, Zuckerberg said in a podcast, "I think the average American has fewer than 3 friends, that is, fewer than 3 people they consider friends; whereas the average person has a much greater need for friends, probably around 15 friends. The average person wants more connections and relationships than they actually have."

Zuckerberg predicts that outsourcing emotional needs to AI therapists, or even to AI romantic partners, will become more socially acceptable in the future. He also said, "When you are able to have real connections, those real connections are better in many ways. But the reality is that people often feel more lonely than they would like to admit."

Zuckerberg then explained that the representation of AI virtual avatars in virtual reality is becoming increasingly realistic. Meta seems to be more keen on improving the relationship between people and these “human-like” avatars, rather than enhancing the relationships between the billions of real humans who use their platform every day.

Part of this may be due to the culture in the tech industry that values efficiency. People try to "biohack" their bodies by optimizing their sleep schedules, using health trackers, and even injecting unregulated "peptide combinations" in order to maximize productivity.

If what you are creating are electric vehicles or computer chips, then efficiency can certainly become a clear North Star goal. However, the relationships between people are not like technological products; they are not projects that can be quickly delivered with as little capital as possible. Human relationships are inherently chaotic and complex, but it is precisely these connections that may give meaning to our lives. When we entrust these interactions to computers, we also give up the difficult yet fulfilling experience of living as human beings.