Regarding character.ai and your lonely friend, this is the time for early adopters, not for the average Joe. It's like with smartphones - there were smartphones before the iPhone, but for regular people, they were complex, clunky, and not cool to use. Chatbots will become much, much better in a couple of years and then they will be ready to be considered as one of the ways to cope with loneliness. It's just too soon.