[Sir_Burpalot]

And you think chronic, crippling loneliness can't make someone lose their will to live? If you don't know what tulpas are, there's an entire, fairly large online community of people willingly inducing schizophrenia in themselves just so they have an imaginary friend to talk to. Surely, AI companions would be a healthier alternative to that.

[akomtu]

I think that opium doesn't cure loneliness.

[Sir_Burpalot]

I'm not sure your analogy applies here. Opioid substances aren't capable of producing persistent subjective improvement because the brain seems to have defense mechanisms against it that neuroscience has not yet found a way to bypass, but in the case of a sufficiently advanced AI companion, the brain would be receiving the exact same inputs as with a real partner.

With many people choosing not to reproduce, many currently existing relationships are already primarily a sort of recreational activity and are divorced from their evolutionary purpose. Replacing live partners with AIs would just take that one step further.