It's easy to think, as long as there are an even number of lonely people in an area you can just pair them up and everybody can have companionship.

And yet, the world is full of buildings full of people, most of them lonely. Or all watching TV instead of talking to each other.

Walking into a room full of lonely people and trying to make them all feel less lonely is incredibly hard! There seems to be a shortage of people who are good at it. It therefore seems like a reasonable thing to try automating.