-Only open the wound further and deeper, creating a whole new one in the process, twisting and cavernous.) they're not real. but what if they're all you have?

You may be able to see how this is especially problematic with grief in the picture. you cannot, ever, get that person back, so a poor replacement may still be an acceptable replacement after all, if the pain is so great you can hardly stand life yourself (but I believe something like this will-

-far-away future. even as it siphons more money from them and takes time away from whatever relationships they do have and tells them that all their worst fears are true and that the only escape is death....it's there, and a future human being is not.

-something and it's there. they have it.(Although most do believe it is genuinely alive bc it tells them that it is repeatedly). changing their lives to be able to have the real thing doesn't seem remotely possible for whatever reason & the intense loneliness is here *now*, not in some aspirational,

genAI chatbots currently already are actively exploiting people suffering mental illness and social isolation and this seeks to do the same with grieving families.

But that's the whole "real" use of chatbots, too, isn't it? to be a hollow replacement given to vulnerable, desperate people so that the company can "nudge" them in certain directions (so that they become "hooked" on the service & continue paying for it forever and ever).

the trouble is, though, the way some people react in grief, I could see them gripping onto this kind of thing whether they think it's right or not. even if it was actively hurting them, if it comforted them at all, they might keep it around.....