AI is quietly shifting from a productivity tool to a companion. We use it to polish essays and organize notes, but millions of people now turn to apps – like Replika—for emotional encouragement and therapeutic support. These bots are programmed for “unconditional positive regard,” which raises a pressing question: at what point does an AI friend become too friendly? 
 

This tension lies at the heart of UEA alumni and Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun. Long before ChatGPT, Ishiguro introduced us to the Artificial Friend (AF) Klara, a solar-powered companion designed to prevent the “loneliness” of the next generation. Klara’s emotional acuity mirroring that of humans is established early on, with the Manager at the store where she is sold noting: “You notice and absorb so much.” 
 
Ishiguro explores the unsettling idea that companionship can be assigned rather than chosen. When Josie mentions her best friend Rick, Klara replies, “no. But … it’s now my duty to be Josie’s best friend.” The idea of “duty” raises the question: is Klara’s loyalty genuine, or simply the product of programming? 
 
A striking scene comes during an “interaction meeting” for students who are taught remotely. When one teenager asks why Josie didn’t get the latest B3 model instead of Klara (a B2), “Josie laughed and said: ‘Now I’m starting to think I should have.’” Klara reflects on whether Josie truly means it and worries that Josie might become angry with her. The scene highlights Klara’s deep insecurities, mirroring the anxieties that often shape human friendship, with Klara reflecting: “I feared the interaction meeting might place shadows over our friendship.” At the same time, Klara becomes a spectacle for the other teenagers – one boy even wants to throw her across the room to see if she can land like a B3 – underscoring how artificial friends can be simultaneously admired, tested, and misunderstood. Ishiguro makes us sympathize with Klara, which makes us wonder: could we actually accept AI as a friend?  

With a film adaptation directed by Taika Waititi (Thor: Ragnarök) and starring Jenna Ortega (Wednesday) reportedly on the horizon, the conversation about AI as a substitute for human connection is only going to grow. At one point, Josie’s father Paul asks Klara: “Do you believe in the human heart? I don’t mean simply the organ, obviously. I’m speaking in the poetic sense. The human heart. Do you think there is such a thing? Something that makes each of us special and individual? And if we just suppose that there is. Then don’t you think, in order to truly learn Josie, you’d have to learn not just her mannerisms but what’s deeply inside her? Wouldn’t you have to learn her heart?” Here, Ishiguro probes the paradox of whether an artificial friend can ever truly grasp human emotion and relationships—a question made more urgent as real-life robots like Sophia by Hanson Robotics are designed for companionship.  
 
Ishiguro himself has warned, “AI will become very good at manipulating emotions.” Reading Klara and the Sun today, it’s hard not to wonder: could the AFs of fiction soon become the companions of reality? 

Image Credit: Samuel Haines, Polly Dye and Upsplash