{"slug": "the-ai-bros-are-lonely", "title": "The AI bros are lonely", "summary": "AI enthusiasts like Jeffrey Escobar, a 25-year-old from Miami, report feeling isolated as friends and family fail to share their passion for building with AI, with Escobar saying, \"It's like I'm in a dark room, everybody can't see anything, and I'm the only one holding a light.\" Kyle Smitherman, a 26-year-old from Houston, suspects his AI consulting business contributed to his breakup, and Vaibhav Kumar, a 32-year-old flight physics engineer, said a dinner was ruined when a friend called AI \"evil.\" These power users are seeking real-life communities through local meet-ups and online platforms like X.", "body_md": "Jeffrey Escobar's family all went to the France vs. England [World Cup match](https://www.businessinsider.com/took-kids-to-pub-watch-the-world-cup-socially-acceptable-2026-6). He stayed home.\n\nThe 25-year-old from Miami doesn't get why the people around him aren't building more with AI. He sees his friends hang out or watch Netflix. He tells them, \"I can't leave my desk.\"\n\n\"It's like I'm in a dark room, everybody can't see anything, and I'm the only one holding a light,\" Escobar.\n\nIt's an isolating feeling. Escobar said it was hard to talk with other guys and go on dates with women. \"I just feel like they don't understand me,\" he said.\n\nFor now, Escobar said his only community is the cofounder of his AI app startup, Addicting Elements. And it's not like he doesn't socialize, Escobar said; he takes meetings for much of the day.\n\nEscobar is one of many AI power users racing to keep up with the rapidly changing technology. For these enthusiasts, the feeling can be overwhelming, pushing them into longer and longer [vibe-coding sessions](https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-gap-relationship-vibe-code-couples-2026-3).\n\nMeanwhile, some of the wider population (especially [younger people](https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-graduates-ai-backlash-commencement-speeches-anxiety-job-market-2026-5)) are souring on AI. Others don't hate the tech — they just don't use it. For the AI aficionados, these people can be difficult to talk to. The isolation creeps in.\n\nIt's lonely out there for AI's biggest fans.\n\n## When no one wants to talk about AI\n\nKyle Smitherman suspects his love of AI contributed to his breakup.\n\nThe 26-year-old from Houston said he went \"all in\" on building his consulting service, UnlockAI. He bootstrapped the business and spent long periods of time working on it, which he said caused strain. It also wasn't \"very easy to explain\" to his now ex-girlfriend.\n\nSmitherman compared his AI business to a more practical one: mowing lawns. His girlfriend would've understood the lawn-mowing, he said, because the work is clear-cut.\n\n\"I'm creating agentic workflows, learning graph loops, and running loops with agents,\" he said. \"She's like: 'You're doing what?'\"\n\nFor Smitherman, AI feels like the [dot-com boom](https://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-ai-bubble-boom-dotcom-interview-peter-kafka-2025-09) or the first iPhone; for his family and friends, it's inconsequential. \"It almost looks like I'm going crazy,\" he said.\n\nLearning anything and everything about AI can challenge a relationship. It may require burning the midnight oil or a constant drifting eye to the agent on your phone. Indeed, some couples previously told Business Insider that they were in [\"Claude-gap\" relationships](https://www.businessinsider.com/claude-gap-relationship-vibe-code-couples-2026-3).\n\nFor others, it can cause rifts between friends.\n\n32-year-old Vaibhav Kumar recalled a dinner at which he talked about the Chinese model [Kimi K3](https://www.businessinsider.com/kimi-k3-ai-model-moonshot-china-open-weights-benchmarks-pricing-2026-7). His friend \"flipped out,\" Kumar said, calling AI and data centers \"evil.\"\n\n\"It ruined the whole dinner,\" said the flight physics engineer from San Francisco and Las Vegas. \"It brought the mood down.\"\n\nKumar is feeling lonely. He has one friend who's into AI, but most of the others don't want to hear about it. Meanwhile, he's filling his time keeping up with AI news, which he described as \"drinking from a water hose, and the hose just keeps getting bigger.\"\n\nThere's \"no world outside it,\" he said.\n\n## How to find your (real-life) AI friends\n\nThere are communities of AI heads out there, from techie online havens like Elon Musk's X to [local meet-ups](https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-social-scene-curated-offline-events-dinner-parties-2026-6). You just have to seek them out (and maybe step away from your monitor).\n\nJonathan Linton described his search by comparing two \"frontiers.\"\n\nThe first \"frontier\" was Myanmar, where he worked for five years beginning in 2013, as the country [opened up economically](https://www.businessinsider.com/myanmar-economic-isolation-ending-2012-1). People descended on its cities, he said, creating a sense of community.\n\nThe second \"frontier\" is AI, he said. The 39-year-old works as an AI lead at an accounting firm and runs the consulting business Fresh Coast AI on the side. He said it feels similar to his time in Myanmar, but without the support of like-minded people nearby.\n\n\"You feel like you're on an island,\" he said. \"I learned: You have to put in more effort into finding a community of people who are doing similar things to you.\"\n\nLinton sought out founder events in his home city of Milwaukee and found friends online.\n\nAnd while the AI community often skews male, it's not only the tech bros feeling the isolation.\n\nAlyssa Clarcq, a 31-year-old CPA from Tampa, said that AI felt like \"this huge secret that no one wants to hear about.\" So, she started posting her travails with LLMs on [TikTok and LinkedIn](https://www.businessinsider.com/posting-social-media-to-get-a-job-boost-confidence-2026-1).\n\nWhile TikToks and virtual meetups may \"scratch the itch,\" they don't solve her loneliness.\n\n\"I am very limited in who I can have a face-to-face conversation with,\" she said.\n\nClarcq did meet up with one AI-loving friend she met on TikTok.\n\n\"We've hung out once or twice,\" she said. \"I at least have someone I can go get coffee with.\"", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-bros-are-lonely", "canonical_source": "https://www.businessinsider.com/ai-bros-lonely-isolated-friends-2026-8", "published_at": "2026-08-05 09:30:01+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-08-05 10:31:10.882214+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-tools", "ai-startups"], "entities": ["Jeffrey Escobar", "Kyle Smitherman", "Vaibhav Kumar", "Addicting Elements", "UnlockAI", "Kimi K3", "Elon Musk", "X"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-bros-are-lonely", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-bros-are-lonely.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-bros-are-lonely.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/the-ai-bros-are-lonely.jsonld"}}