I think we'll get to virtual chatbots that are indistinguishable fairly quickly in a matter of years even, we're still pretty far off from robotics at that level atleast a couple of decades.
I think the barrier is mostly psychological, so I think it's will take a generation that is so lonely, that they will need a cybercompanion, but also not cringing at the thought. So my guesstimate is popularization in 2050.
The barrier is only technological. It is not yet possible to achieve human level intelligence on a machine. We are not talking about scripted chat bots, those have existed for over a decade. Every developer knows the need for such software is there, it's just that they are not able to.
o_MrBombastic_o t1_it0le2w wrote
I think we'll get to virtual chatbots that are indistinguishable fairly quickly in a matter of years even, we're still pretty far off from robotics at that level atleast a couple of decades.