Meta hypes "AI" friends as social media’s future, but users want real connections

Just remember the type of company Meta is and this all makes way more sense. They've always loved manipulating people and this just makes the whole process easier.

When I was a lonely teenager, all I ever wanted was a fake connection to fake friends from a profiteering-on-the-loneliness-epidemic mass-conglomerate of terrible people. That would have helped my awful depression and thoughts of suicide. In fact, the app Eliza already existed and I had it (it was an early chatbot). Why did I feel so lonely if the solution already existed? Zuck has surely struck gold with this one.

Can it go both ways? We can have an AI of ourselves friend and interact with the friend AIs of others, while we go outside and touch grass.