[cbhl]

What if there is a value proposition in paying to have a bot flirt with you now and again?

I'm reminded of the entire "robot boyfriend/girlfriend" genre of TV/Movies/Comics from Japan/Korea, plus the "dating simulator" genre of video games. These are more fantasy-fulfillment, though.

I honestly think it would be a net good for society to have simulators/bots that teach people how to have real, healthy relationships with other humans. (There are anecdoates about kids with autism who became more verbal once they started talking to Siri or the Google Assistant, for example.) But I feel like working on or using such tools would probably be as stigmatized as sex toys in the near/medium term.

[darpa_escapee]

There's a difference between seeking out human interaction and then being deceived by a company's bots, and intentionally seeking out bots.

[village-idiot]

It’s more sad and funny to outside observers, that’s all.

Also, their target audience is nominally married people. So either these people have a fetish for cheating (weird, but not my problem), or they already are in relationships of some sort of another. One would hope that a bit couldn’t teach them anything new at that point.