Samuel D. James, “How to Get People to be Friends With Machines in Three Easy Steps”:
Success for Meta’s AI friends is not going to be when people who have a lot of friends decide to add some AI ones, or when people who have no friends turn in manic desperation to robots. Both scenarios will happen, but neither are what Zuckerberg is selling here. What Meta is selling is a thermostat for your relational life. They’re selling control, curation, technological precision to let friendship and sex into your life at the moments you need it, and keep it out at the moments you don’t. Meta’s target user is someone who’s neither filled with joy nor filled with despair. It’s ordinary, emotionally regulated, career-prioritizing, self-care-appreciating, go-where-the-job-is-mobilizing average folks—the citizens of Big Digital who take the chances they get to reduce the friction between their emotional lives and their material autonomy.