Winner
Alex Cox, 16, from Bethesda, Md., responded to an article headlined “For Older People Who Are Lonely, Is the Solution a Robot Friend?” She wrote:
Is friendship becoming obsolete?
That’s what I wondered as I read this article, a sick feeling swelling in my gut. Many older people depend on ElliQ’s synthetic friendship. But I share Professor Porteny’s concern that these people can’t “enjoy the beautiful reciprocity that emerges from social interactions.” ElliQ provides something that almost mimics genuine human companionship, but is “almost” enough? If so, what’s the cost of trading real friendship for the artificial variety, especially for people nearing the end of their lives?
I spent last week with my grandfather, who’s almost 96. We had countless conversations over meals whose recipes my grandmother left us about everything from his former job as a NASA engineer to the German dialect he brought across the ocean fleeing World War II. That week, we did more than talk: we connected; we learned from each other; we united generations; we bridged worlds. The most fundamentally human action, after all, is to share.
What if instead of me, he’d spent the week with a robot? Something that could compute but not learn, hear but not listen, respond but not reciprocate? What if he’d died with nobody to share his rich, beautiful story?
Elderly people deserve companions. But they also deserve to have their recipes remembered, their dialects learned, and their stories told after their deaths. They deserve a human. As much as ElliQ can do, it will never be able to be one.
Runners-Up
In alphabetical order by the writer’s first name.
Anthony Babu on “Wildlife Protections Take a Back Seat to SpaceX’s Ambitions”
Cailyn Liu on “Welcome to Stucktopia”
Celina Chen on “What Your Grocery Cart Says About You”
Haiyang Zeng on “I’m a Psychiatrist. Here’s How I Talk to Transgender Youth and Their Families About Gender Identity.”
Joedie Sta. Cruz on “I’m a Psychiatrist. Here’s How I Talk to Transgender Youth and Their Families About Gender Identity.”
Honorable Mentions
Alex Xu on “Elon Musk’s Plan to Put a Million Earthlings on Mars in 20 Years”
Charlotte on “For Biden, a Race Against Time”
Chloe Jiang on “A Feline Scientist Explains Why Your Cat Might Actually Like You”
Ella Gentile on “Shelley Duvall, Star of ‘The Shining’ and ‘Nashville,’ Dies at 75”
Gabbi on “What We Know About the Assassination Attempt Against Trump”
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