Futurama - I dated a Robot

This feels like a precarious topic, but here we go: I believe that humans, for the most part, have deeply-wired needs for companionship, intimacy, sexuality, etc. I think when those needs are regularly unmet, an individual can suffer considerably. But not everyone practically gets access to companionship at a human level. Indeed, we've evolved well past taking a club, bashing someone, and dragging them by the hair into your cave. Nobody has the right to someone else's co-operation. For those there have always been alternatives from media, tools, hired companionship, etc. This is just an evolution of those alternatives, no? I'm not really sold on the worry over the potential Monroebot outcome[1]. Though I think it becomes deeply philosophical about the right of a species to decide it's done replicating. [1] [this video]

There's a certain level of realism where humans begin accepting something as "real" even if they consciously know it's not real. I'm sure there's terms for this. It's kind of like "the other side of the uncanny valley." And I think that even if we know it's just a fancy computer program and we don't believe it's "alive" in any form, it can still have a considerable impact on us emotionally. Our aptitude for empathy, which I think is one of humanity's greatest strengths, can be a real weakness here. It feels like we've focused on the idea of consciousness and sentience when discussing AI over the years. But I don't think it even needs to get anywhere near those. As soon as a chatbot acts sufficiently real, it's sufficiently real. In no time we'll have Monroebots: [this video]