It's like saying to someone who hates the internet in 2003 good news you don't have to use it like ever

Not really. AI will be ubiquitous of course, but humans who will offer advice (friends, strangers, therapists) will always be a thing. Nobody is forcing this guy to type his problems into ChatGPT.

Surely AI will only make the loneliness epidemic even worse?

We are already seeing AI-reliant high schoolers unable to reason, who's to say they'll still be able to empathize in the future?

Also, with the persistent lack of psychiatric services, I guarantee at some point in the future AI models will be used to (at least) triage medical mental health issues.

You missed the mark, support-o-tron. You were supposed to have provided support for my views some 20 years in the past, when I still had some good ones.