Preliminary Inquiry into Relational Significance under Artificial Functional Sufficiency

This philosophical essay uses a deliberately strong artificial-agent thought experiment to examine the human need for others across material provision, functional cooperation, care, reproduction, intimacy, recognition, and shared social life. The analysis treats dependence on the other as an entry point rather than a complete account of relational significance. Highly capable artificial agents may reduce several forms of interpersonal necessity while leaving open the value of alterity, voluntary relation, shared becoming, and participation in a common world. The essay therefore distinguishes functional substitution from relational significance and asks how human relations may be reorganized when many practical reasons for needing another person become technologically substitutable. Political economy remains part of this inquiry because the conditions governing access to artificial generativity can redistribute dependence even when direct reliance on human labour declines.