This is an insane take. You have no idea how much violence this approach would cause as you confirm almost every gun owners worst fears and play right into the part of playing a tyrannical government.

You are coming off as super privileged here if you think handing over all the guns to the cops is a good idea.

I knew a bipolar person who made friends by acting the same way, and I think about it every time that this subject comes up. Unfortunately, that behavior, lying for benefit, is something that humans are far too capable of. Conmen abuse it all the time to get their take.

You can have all those things in an online relationship. People in person will also abandon you in a time of need. You are correct about friendships, they are super rare and most people are only in any kind of relationship to serve themselves. People also generally think their acquaintances are friends.

Even if the love is one sided, it can be real. Love is pretty subjective and is essentially just a chemical reaction that someone is having in their brain. They may actually love their chatbot.

I don’t think this is really a healthy thing, I am just trying to point out to those people, it probably is real.

I also don’t think it is as rare as you think. The hype really drove people to that side of things, and there are whole communities that have popped up around the idea of having relationships, both sexual and romantic, with LLMs.

This is a terrible take. You can meet people in social spaces online and make real friendships. People mask as much in what you are calling the real world, of which the internet is a part of, as much as they do online.