The only part I disagree with you on is calling an AI girlfriend an “abandoned friend”. Extending the idea of friendship to a program that is mimicking human responses (let’s ignore it’s likely spyware for now) is at best a proxy for friendship, as there can not be a connective bond between 2 individuals when one is incapable of genuine emotional attachment.

I’m using the word “friend “in a distinct way: this is not some Facebook friend who you never see, occasionally may chat with, and ultimately ignore. I think it best, AI fulfills that role. I can’t imagine anyone choosing a masturbatory AI app instead of a real partner.

That’s not the future. That’s really unhealthy.

The word you’re looking for is “addiction”.

Video games involved putting a sheet of acetate over the b&w tv screen and then drawing with a wax pencil where the dashed line appears (Winky Dink ruled - and don’t forget to put the acetate on the screen or Dad will get mad).

And this is an actual thing - spokespeople are generally female now as we as humans have a greater capacity for empathy and more inherent respect for women. At one point spokes people were all men… And nowadays, even the most evil companies push the women out front so that they can be a bit more evil for a just a little bit longer before the shit hits the fan.

Basically evil people, male and female, will still do the same shit, lying dishonest job, so long as they are paid for it. We just cut the women a lot more slack.

Yeah. Lying does that.