#76 AIと友達になれますか？

Listener 1: The Pain of the Friendship-Romance Boundary for a Gay Person

The episode opens with a letter from a listener using the pen name Dazai no Osamu (太宰のおさむ). The word "friend," they write, is warm and yet always constricting, because as a gay person they find that deep resonance with someone—the pull to know them better—carries a constant possibility of tipping into romantic love. The sense of safety sheltered by the label of friendship and the despair of knowing that label can never be crossed sit permanently back-to-back.

Miyake notes that awkwardness around one-on-one time with someone of the same sex is something many people feel regardless of orientation, but gay people outside same-sex communities have fewer spaces to talk it through, making isolation more likely. She also brings up a topic that had been trending on X: the observation that married people are less likely to be suspected of having feelings for someone of the opposite sex—though she notes reality is far less tidy than that.

Listener 2: The Mechanism by Which Marriage-Hunting, Marriage, and Child-Rearing Reduce Friendships

A second letter, from a listener going by MEG Cinema Ame-san (MEGシネマ・アメさん), opens with appreciation for the idea in Miyake's book Fuufu Fuzai Shakai (夫婦不在社会) that having several friends present at once distributes the weight of hurt. The listener also reports a palpable sense, in their late twenties and early thirties, that friendships and partner-seeking moved in opposite directions—one rising as the other fell.

Miyake treats this as a familiar pattern and explains the mechanics: during marriage-hunting, running through a high volume of dating-app meetings simply erases the hours that would have gone to friends. After marriage, workplace transfers and child-rearing make meetups harder still. The ideal, she says, is growing comfortable with a kind of friendship where you can pick things up five years later around entirely different topics—but that requires some natural occasion for chance reunions. She gives the example of festivals and concerts serving that role, and shares a story of a friend who ran into a decade-old internet acquaintance at a Kentī (中島健人) Thailand live event.

Could AI Be a Podcast Co-host or Confidant? The Extrovert Hypothesis

Miyake is candid about envying shows that have two hosts. She used to co-host a segment called "Corner: Hon Dō Desu ka" (コーナー本どうですか) with novelist Tanigashira Kazuki (谷頭和樹), but scheduling made it impossible to sustain. She has half-seriously wondered about making AI her co-host—but laughs that an AI capable of delivering natural retorts to her particular style of speech does not yet exist.

On the news that growing numbers of young people are treating AI as a romantic substitute, Miyake discloses that she herself cannot bring herself to share inner troubles with AI. She uses it for research and phone-troubleshooting, but for personal worries she reaches for her journal instead. Her hypothesis: this reflects introversion. Extroverts (yōkya)—people whose instinct is to talk things through—can form genuine bonds with an AI that is available around the clock. Introverts (inkya) prefer to process alone.

She also observes a generational divide: her own cohort used the internet as a solo playground kept separate from real-life relationships, whereas younger generations treat LINE and Instagram as extensions of offline life, with constant connection as the baseline. That background, she suggests, makes it easier for younger people to relate to AI as friend or partner.

The "Wall Content" Theory: Why Two-Man Formats Attract Everyone

Miyake uses a concept she calls "wall content" (壁コンテンツ) to organize an observation she has long had. When consuming content, audiences are either a neutral bystander—the "wall"—or a participant pulled into the experience, like a student in a classroom. The phrase "becoming the wall" comes from BL fandom.

Quiz Knock (クイズノック) is her prototype of wall content: viewers simply observe impressive people solving problems, no immersion required. By contrast, the drama Brush Up Life (ブラッシュアップライフ, written by Bakarism/バカリズム, starring Andō Sakura/安藤桜), with its highly realistic portrayal of a local women's friend group, drew comments from some male viewers saying they did not know where they fit in—a sign that the structure sharply divides those who can enter from those who cannot.

Two-man podcasts and late-night radio featuring men let audiences sit safely as the wall, which broadens the listener base across genders. Miyake notes a quiet increase in two-man podcasts by novelists—Gyūho Gannen (牛歩元年) and Mitsūshin (密通信) among them—and attributes it partly to this dynamic. Solo women's content is also plentiful, but multi-woman group talk tends to skew toward female audiences. She singles out Rabbit (ラビット) as a case where listeners can be the wall and yet naturally feel drawn into the circle.

Recommended Book: *Ai ni Koishichya Dame Desu ka: AI to Ikiru tame no Rinri to Tetsugaku*

This week's pick is by Shimizu Hayate (清水はやて). The cheerful cover and playful title suggest an essay collection, but it turns out to be a full academic work by a philosopher and ethicist who has long studied how humans construct ethical relationships with non-human entities—AI, animals, and the environment. Topics include applying Aristotle's theory of friendship to AI, mapping the philosophical assumptions that underlie both pro- and anti-AI positions, connecting those positions to Kantian thought, and examining arguments for AI rights. Miyake calls the prose clear enough to work as an introduction to ethics and recommends it especially to anyone who has read an AI news story and found themselves thinking, *But is this really okay?*