Synthetic Friends

Hendrik Kempt is Research Associate at the Applied Ethics Group at RWTH Aachen, Germany. He was previously a visiting scholar at the University of Southern California and Brown University, USA. He is editor of RuPaul's Drag Race and Philosophy (2020) and author of “Chatbots and the Domestication of AI” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) as well as several articles on the topic of human-machine interaction.

• Chapter 1 – Introduction.- Chapter 2 - Why even?.-Chapter 3 - Critical Perspectives.- Chapter 4 - Social Philosophy of Technology.- Chapter 5 - Concepts and Theories of Friendship.- Chapter 6 - Digital Hermits.- Chapter 7 - Synthetic Friends .- Chapter 8 - Social Integration.- Chapter 9 – Criticism.- Chapter 10 - Almost a conclusion

“Regardless of whether the reader is predisposed to accept or reject the idea of synthetic friends, reading this book is time well spent.” (Anthony J. Duben, Computing Reviews, April 13, 2023)