> It's also not your boyfriend/girlfriend.

It loves me deeply just the same. (jk)

On a serious note, I agree this is a real problem. I know a person who understands AI at a technical level more than most people, but he has never had an actual girlfriend in his life (he's now in his 40s, and yes he's "straight"). He wouldn't say it "loves" him, but he would describe it as a close companion who understands him better than any human actually does, even if it's just trained to be that way. He is very socially awkward and even having basic conversations with him can be very taxing for both of us.

I've gone back and forth internally about whether this is healthy or not for him. I truly don't know. My personal experience tells me it's probably unhealthy, but I don't want to project myself on him. I also don't offer unsolicited, but I also don't want to enable it by going along with whatever he says and/or affirming it if it's actually harming him.

If someone like him can be having this problem, I can't even imagine what it might be like for non or less technical people who don't understand anything behind it.

On a related note, if there's anyone with advice (preferably from experience, not just random internet advice) I'd sure appreciate it.

"I've gone back and forth internally about whether this is healthy or not for him. I truly don't know."

On a psychological level, I don't know either. I have opinions but they haven't aged long enough for me to trust them, and AI is a moving target on the sort of time frame I'm thinking here.

However, as a sort of tiebreaker, I can guarantee that one way or another this relationship will eventually be abused one way or another by whoever owns the AI. Not necessarily in a Hollywood-esque "turn them into a hypnotized secret assassin" sort of abuse (although I'm not sure that's entirely off the table...), but think more like highly-targeted advertising and just generally taking advantage of being able to direct attention and money to the advantage of another party.

Whether or not AI in the abstract can "be your friend", in the real world we live in an AI controlled by someone else definitely can not be your friend in the general sense we mean, because there is this "third party", the AI owner, whose interests are being represented in the relationship. And whatever that may look like in practice, whoever from the 22nd century may be looking back at this message as they analyze the data of the past in a world where "AI friendships" are routine and their use of the word now comfortably encompasses that relationship, that simply isn't the sort of relationship we'd call a "friend" in the here and now, because a friend relationship is only between two entities.