The best analogy I could make is that if I had a roast chicken, but it had a giant smelly turd smell, and somehow I knew that it was totally clean and edible, it'd still disgust me. Even if the turd smell went away after a few minutes.
It's just weird. There are real humans out there, put down the phone man.
> There are real humans out there, put down the phone man.
was the part of this thread that actually provoked disgust for me. It's akin to telling a person suffering from depression "you should just be happy!" as if they haven't tried.
There are people out there who will never succeed in finding human companionship, it's a fact of life. I see it as a positive that they can at least find some form of companionship, because the alternative is a dark path that can lead to self-loathing, radicalization, and in the worst case scenario, violence.
I wouldn't tell a person with depression to "just be happy", but neither would I allow them to humour the idea of giving up on life.
They certainly won't find companionship by giving up and deciding to mess around with bots instead.
It's more like telling a depressed person to get some sunlight in the morning or whatever. Is it going to fix everything? No, but you do it anyway, because behaviour is sticky.