Every once in awhile I’m reminded that the science fiction I read as a kid has in many ways somehow become the world I’m actually living in now. It can be a bit disconcerting!
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Umm…why? Is this why 20-something AI PhDs are getting $250m offers from the likes of Meta and Alphabet?
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I was just reading a pdf of an old computer magazine from the mid 1990s and it has an ad spruking “talk to your girlfriend in the computer”.
This idea is as old as personal computers are!
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I remember a school teacher telling us maths and log tables were important because “you won’t always be carrying a calculator with you everywhere you go” 
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This anime sensibility regarding sexuality and attractiveness has always baffled me, even when I was young enough to be the target audience. Yes, eventually I married a beautiful skinny short-haired Japanese girl. But that’s different, I swear! This…toy cannot be healthy. I do, however, think this as a technology might be good for people at the opposite end of the age spectrum. Old people can lack the simple attachments they need for happy daily lives. Reading that, I see that I may be making the point for lonely young people too. The difference to me is that old people can’t be harmed by the unrealistic expectations that technology like this promotes. Well as the father of a pretty 19yo daughter I can only say that if she saw one of these things in a guy’s apartment, she would immediately catch the closest Uber out of there.
(Edit: those random almost unconnected sentences above practically scream “ok boomer!” Although I am not quite a boomer, I do acknowledge boomer sensibilities.)
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Nope. I completely understand and is exactly why I deleted my first reply.
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I dunno…a wife you can turn off as well as on has definite benefits
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Perhaps, but those things are just toasters with extra steps. 
I think teaching people how to be emotionally mature would yield better results…
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There is a joke here somewhere…but I’m just gonna stay quiet.
Besides…for balance, els would probably kill for mute button
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ROFLMAO I did serve that on a silver platter, didn’t I? 
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Those are air fryers
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There a joke about buns and ovens buuuut…
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Oooh wait wait - Space heaters! 
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Fricking flame throwers 
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Thats genius on a few more levels
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Think about how much information and personal data Big Tech can scrape/ glean/ collect from willing donors with something like this.
Think about how much they can monetize it and sell it to the current Federal Government, and how much they can then use it to target and radicalize the poor saps who would be going all in on this.
Welcome to a future worse than anything Orwell could have ever imagined.
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Ew…
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That’s the main point for me.
If they were completely offline I wouldn’t see that much of a problem. But they VERY much aren’t.
They sell anything and everything you tell them to everyone who wants it, and they use it for purposes that hurt the user.
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