[johnnyanmac]

You're somewhat correct, and a bit off:

>In 2018, a Pew Research Poll found that teenagers who were connected with their friends online were more likely to also hang out in person. By 2022, in-person outings for teens had collapsed.

>Can their online friends fill the role that real-life ones once did? Maybe — if those “friends” even exist.

>Last year one study found a full 25% of young adults “believe that AI has the potential to replace real-life romantic relationships.”

Those are factors, but it's pretty clear the pandemic accelerated such things as such that these cause isolation rather than a conduit to meet up.

And AI romance is on the rise. Is this healthy? I wouldn't think so; and I'm mostly saying that because I hate the idea of a corporate server having such a dangerously intimate connection with a human. Sounds like a Black Mirror episode.

I'll begrudgingly stay open to the more general theory of a personal AI you fall in love with otherwise. Very fearful, but I'd feel like a hypocrite as a game dev who has technically done tiny contributions to this if I suddenly say "you can't care about fictional characters".