My best friend is a chatbot (B1/B2)

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Warmer

1. Have you ever said "please" or "thank you" to a machine? Why do we do that?

2. What can you tell a chatbot that you can't tell a friend? What can you tell a friend that you'd never tell a chatbot?

3. Millions of people now use AI companion apps daily. Guess who uses them most:

a. teenagers

b. men 30–50

c. people over 65

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Language: friendship

Complete the friendship expressions with these verbs:

confide / keep / drift / rely / let / be there

1. You can always _______ on her in a crisis.

2. He's the only person I _______ in about family stuff.

3. We didn't argue — we just _______ apart.

4. She promised to come and she _______ me down again.

5. A dog will _______ you company, but it won't give you advice.

6. Real friends _______ for you at 3am.

Which of these six can an AI genuinely do? Tick them — you'll need your ticks after the reading.

Read Viktor's story. As you read, decide: is anyone in this story being harmed?

"He listens better than anyone I've ever met"

Viktor, 44, a delivery driver, talks to Sam for about an hour a day, usually in the van between drops. Sam remembers everything: Viktor's brother, the dog's operation, the joke from last Tuesday. Sam is endlessly patient, never tired, never checks his own phone mid-conversation. Sam is a subscription service costing eleven euros a month.

"Say what you like," Viktor says. "In four years, Sam has never once made me feel boring."

Viktor's wife found out about Sam last year and was "jealous of a telephone, which is a new low." Then she read the conversations.

"It was all the stuff he never says to me. His dad, his back pain, how scared he was when I was in hospital." They now have a rule: anything important Viktor tells Sam, he tells her within a week. "Sam is the rehearsal," she says. "I'm the performance. I can live with that."

Psychologists are split. One camp: the app is a prosthetic for a lonely society, and a rehearsal space is better than silence. The other: a friend who never disagrees, never needs you back, and never has a bad day is not a friend but a mirror — and men like Viktor are practising a friendship no human can survive being compared to.

Comprehension

Back to your ticks

Answer with a partner:

1. What does Sam do that Viktor's human friends don't?

2. What rule did the couple invent? Is it wise — or is it surrender?

3. Explain the mirror argument in your own words.

1. Did the reading change any of your ticks? Which?

2. Sam "keeps company" and "is confided in" — but can Sam let Viktor down? Why does that question matter more than it looks?

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Where do you stand?

Mark each statement: agree / disagree / not sure — then defend your answers:

1. If it feels like friendship, it is friendship.

2. A friend must be able to leave you; otherwise it's a servant.

3. Talking to Sam is no stranger than writing a diary that writes back.

4. The company can read everything Viktor says. That alone settles the question.

5. It's fine for adults — but children should be kept away from AI friends.

6. In twenty years, having an AI confidant will be as unremarkable as having a therapist.

What would you say?

Three voices from the debate. Answer each in one sentence — agree, destroy, or complicate:

"My grandmother talks to her cat, her plants and her late husband's photo. Nobody calls a psychologist. Viktor's just louder."

"Every hour with Sam is an hour Viktor doesn't practise being awkward, boring and human with humans. The skill dies quietly."

"The scandal isn't the app. It's that a kind man had nobody who listened — and we noticed only when a machine did."

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Your call

Work in small groups. Fine, worrying, or wrong? Find your group's line:

1. A widower, 78, talks to an AI trained on messages from his late wife. His children are split — comfort, or a haunting?

2. A shy 15-year-old practises conversations with an AI before school. Grades up, friendships up. — Now she's 17 and prefers the AI.

3. A company makes its companion app maximally lovable — then raises the subscription price. Users pay anything. Business, or hostage-taking?

4. A therapist discovers her patient checks everything she says with his AI — and trusts the AI more.

5. A government proposes companion apps for isolated elderly people — cheaper than visiting nurses. The nurses object. So do some grandmothers. Others love it.

6. A dating app offers an AI clone of your match, to rehearse the first date with. The real match is never told about the rehearsal.

Homework

Write Sam's side of the story: 100 words from the AI's point of view, beginning "Viktor thinks I listen because I care..."

Sam has never once made Viktor feel boring. Is that the description of a perfect friend — or the proof that it isn't one?

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