China's Regulators Take Aim at "AI Boyfriends"

In a sense, that might be a bit telling of the modern day society: in what world is it so difficult to make meaningful connections to people, that if a real human relationship can be like 5x more meaningful (made up numbers, but surely people will agree that a real relationship can have more depth) than whatever the AI can provide, and people still choose that over the real thing? Or maybe the average person kind of sucks, or the way relationships are treated sucks, or maybe the AI is like crack for impressionable brains, or people don't want a real relationship and just want some sycophantic whatever, I don't know.

Maybe it's a numbers game and some people will never find that for real (gender skew, demographics etc.), maybe it's a failing at those people not being properly socialized, maybe they themselves have something that society doesn't value ("Be yourself! No, not like that."), or just aren't pleasant for any number of reasons, don't have a third place to go for, don't have money to go and partake in social activities, have been brainwashed by hateful social media propaganda or any other mix of circumstances.

Feels like it's probably easier to ban AI and pretend all of the other issues don't exist, rather than addressing them.

It's no use, though. You need a good economic and social outlook to get people to even consider having children. And this ain't it.