Why would an atom become an ion? Isn’t it best to be neutral?

Artificial Intelligence and Ga: Ion Formation

For AI, there are 3 valence electrons. Ga has 5 valence. To become stable, AI must gain 3 electrons while Ga requires 1 electron. AI3+ ion will be created by AI and it would become an anion. Ga would make Ga+ ion, which would then be a cation. AI would look similar to Ne and Ga, which would make it a cation. When an atom gains or loses electrons, it becomes an ion. An atom, such as lithium that loses one electron becomes positively charged. Li+1 is the result of one atom gaining one electron and losing one electron. Because the cation lost at least one electron, the atom radius of a Cation is often smaller than that of the original atom. The nucleus becomes more positively charged which draws the electrons closer together. This causes the cation to be smaller than the original atom (Alzheimer 2018). Chen and colleagues. Chen et al. (2020) found that the ionic radius for a cation was smaller than its nuclear radius. The process of ionization involves an atom losing electrons or getting new ones to form a cation.