this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2025
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I mean, video games aren't real either. I played a round of Steel Division 2 earlier today. It was fun, but it didn't really accomplish anything. The tanks and people there weren't real -- they were just renditions of a computer-rendered world. I don't think that most people are going to go off on video games as being simply virtual, though.
I wouldn't personally use the term "boyfriend" or "girlfriend". They're fancy chatbots. But I don't think that there's anything intrinsically problematic with them. The big issue, from my standpont, is if it causes people to not go out and have kids because the chatbot is taking the place of a partner, exploiting a useful biological imperative -- that's got broader societal effects.
It sounds like in this case, the author is a woman who is a divorcee who was mostly looking for entertainment, not a spouse. So...shrugs
I mean, if she went out and read some romance novels and fantasized, would that be preferable to a chatbot? That'd be more of a traditional route, maybe. But is one clearly worse than the other?