Your example proves their point perfectly. You shouldn't delegate wishing your grandma happy birthday to a fucking AI agent. And you should feel ashamed for doing so. And you should feel the social pressure to hide that fact if you do resort to it.

While this tech doesn't feel quite as dystopian as most recent AI innovations, I do think it is a further step in the direction of human disconnection.

As long as the ROI from social relationships(inheritance, friendship favors, dating/mating potential, etc) can be upheld using less effort, such as language models, its a no-brainer and you lose out to competition if you don't do it.

Well you both prove each other’s point ;)