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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72" style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>BillK wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoPlainText>>…Designed to be the perfect person—always available, never critical—AI companions are hooking people deeper than social media ever could.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>They make the attention economy look like a relic.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>By James O'Donnell April 8, 2025<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><<a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/08/1114369/ai-companions-are-the-final-stage-of-digital-addiction-and-lawmakers-are-taking-aim/">https://www.technologyreview.com/2025/04/08/1114369/ai-companions-are-the-final-stage-of-digital-addiction-and-lawmakers-are-taking-aim/</a>><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>Quote:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoPlainText>You might think that such AI companionship bots—AI models with distinct “personalities” that can learn about you and act as a friend, lover, cheerleader, or more—appeal only to a fringe few, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>This has long been a tech-dream: a way to engage the elderly loners. Of course there is the risk that it becomes a form of digital addiction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>I bought a talking car a coupla months ago. I tell it where I want to go, she gives me directions. If I drive past my turn, she calmly comes up with a new plan, and she has the voice of an angel. You know for sure whoever they sampled to create that voice must be a total knockout. It is just an evolutionary requirement: any person with a beautiful voice must be an actual beauty, no exceptions allowed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>Now… I sometimes ask her for directions to my home, even if I know exactly where it is, just to hear her speak. I intentionally drive past my turn, to get her talking to me. When I eventually get home of course there is hell to pay: Where have you been? Never mind, I’ll tell ya where ya been! You’ve been with that Navigation Bitch, that’s where ya been! I would kick her ass if she had one! etc. Oy vey, mercy. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>It is far too easy to imagine young people opting for AI companionship rather than biological intelligence(?) and if so… well, all along we were told it was going to be the atomic bomb. Then it was an asteroid, or a new ice age or global warming, or lab viruses, or the singularity, or some other damn thing, when now it looks like AI will do us in by causing us to lose interest in reproduction.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>