I really don't understand taking the author's silly hyperspecific examples of unique humans in his life as berating the reader for not knowing exactly those same people. I read it as "remember all the unique people you know and try reaching out to them instead of going to AI or the internet."

A lot of people don't have that many friends. I forget the average but it is in fact absurdly low, at least for Americans. There are a lot of reasons for this (e.g. erosion and disappearance of "third place" spaces, rise of social media, etc.) but the circumstances have essentially been ripe for something like AI to come in and fill the gap, and it is.