Can this super-humanoid robot ‘solve’ loneliness?

Lifelike humanoid companion robots are arriving now in Chinese homes to combat epidemics of fractured families, alienated elderly populations, and general isolation. Secreted below the flesh-tone silicone skin layer are onboard AI-driven emotional response engines, personalized and local memory, 88 mechanical and motorized joints, and voice and expression modification options for which the ultra-alienated (and evidently wealthy) Chinese consumers are lining up.

The robots are made by UBTech, a publicly traded company in Shenzhen. According to the South China Morning Post, the UWorld U1 Companion Series of “ultra-bionic androids” are expressly designed as domestic companions, featuring "lifelike silicone skin, custom voice replication, and 88 high-degree-of-freedom joints. Variants include Lite, Pro, and Ultra, priced from roughly $17,650 to $145,000.”

Americans lead the global charge toward loneliness and alienation.

Over 13,300 such models were sold on the first day they became available.

Ole Lehmann, former crypto trader turned AI business implementation navigator, turned to X recently to weigh in. “Loneliness is becoming a market,” he observed, “and the Chinese are buying like crazy.”

Lehmann, who “helps non-technical people make money with AI,” noted that “China has 118 million empty-nest seniors, parents whose kids grew up and moved away. Another 90 million adults live completely alone. For a huge share of the country there’s nobody to talk to. The U1 was built to fill exactly that gap. A presence in the house that talks back, reads your mood, remembers your life.”

Lehmann ended his post with a portentous question: “I’m curious to see if this would catch on as easily in the West?”

Perhaps the AI whisperer isn’t up on the American economy of late and doesn’t realize that the vast majority of us are still battling to pay for essentials, much less navigate the maze and slay the guardians of first homeownership.

Or perhaps Lehmann does understand something about the market.

Hearts of darkness

If loneliness is the lever ... and if the purchase can be made feasible (say, something along the lines of buying a boat or building that ADU in your backyard) ... and if we consider that in many ways Americans lead the global charge toward absolute levels of loneliness and alienation ...

Then yes, indeed, it’s unfortunately very much in our future. We will begin seeing flesh-bots, service-bots, shopping-bots, and anything else the so-called email class (mostly female, well-paid, childless) desires.

As ever, the story is in the replies. Under Lehmann’s post, commenters suggest the possibilities for “upgrades” and the inevitability of integrated porn and sex options. Of course, barring some deep wellspring of backlash, this is coming — despite the abhorrence tingling through every last relational entity on earth. We seem, as Leonard Cohen suggested, to “want it darker.”

RELATED: Shadowy companies are selling access to your smart TV — and its data

JDawnInk/Getty Images

Among adults under 50 who do not have children, a Pew Research survey found that almost half believe it is unlikely they will ever have kids. The U.S. marriage rate has plummeted since the 1970s, hitting historic all-time lows. It’s been 26 years since Robert Putnam, in “Bowling Alone,” showed how American social capital was wiped out in exchange for the sugar-high blip of cheap consumer goods. Do that math if you have any question about the uses of robots in America.

It may be the sheer oddity of our simulation-heavy era that contributes to this delirious sense that everything “new tech” seems to unearth or expose such old and terrifying desires. Another factor must be related to globalization, this ongoing tech-enabled merger of East and West. When the Japanese first entered American car markets, they struggled with marketing. Their vehicle names often didn’t land with American consumers. Pink Lady, believe it or not, just didn’t compete with Cherokee or Malibu.

“Ultra-bionic” is endearing, in a sense, but somehow simultaneously bizarre and insulting. (Isn’t bionic ultra enough?) When America is ready (that is, when the price point can be made to work), American marketers will jump on those childless middle-aged women and unmarried young men with a calculated skill any natural predator would envy. As Putnam warned about the logic of social capital, no matter how cheap the bots, we’ll all pay dearly.