What about people who don't have human companions? Should they not have any companionship at all over having dogs, birds, cats, or chatbots?
My cat will harass me if I'm on my computer after midnight. It's time to put the technology away and lie down where she can keep an eye on me. She's quite clear on this point. This is an entire category of interaction not available to chatbots. There is a difference in level of reality.
And when lacking human companionship, grounding to reality is really important. You've got to get out of your head sometimes.
I think animal companions are a different class than chatbots since they're not trying to be people so I make no comment on those.
Why do they have to "do the work" to be deserving of companionship when most of us don't have to do anything because it comes natural to us and we can relatively easily regulate the amount of companionship we want.
I fail to see the bad thing. For some people it's either a chatbot (or a dog) or no interaction at all. Should people starve instead of eating at McDonald's because that's "not real food"?
Clearly people have needs, clearly they feel chatbots satisfy those to some degree (otherwise they wouldn't use them). To those people, it's an improvement, I don't see how that's a negative.
If you want a really hot take: ai chatbot companions are just an evolution of pets. They are a vaguely life affirming substitute created to medicate human loneliness, for a fee of course.
"Have you ever tried just not being sad?"
"Wow, I never thought of that. Thanks!"