Presumably, the value in finding each other will be the key to determining you have found someone real. If you literally can't tell the difference, then what does it matter? But many of us believe that there are important differences, that do matter, and that the dead internet can never truly provide.
If the connection is real, one would think the people would eventually want to meet. We've all seen the stories of people being catfished and how devastating it is for some people. How long is an acceptable amount of time for someone to engage in an online relationship (of any kind, not necessarily romantic), before finding out it's been a chatbot the whole time?
I just met someone, I think last year, who I've known via forums and chat for over 20 years now. I was looking for a place to watch the eclipse and totality was going right through his backyard. Imagine if I drove down there it was just some random address that an AI gave me after 20 years of talking. I'd lose my mind.
Some people's only friends are people they know online, through games or forums. Imagine finding out your only friend in the world isn't even real. That's very dark.
This seems like something the bots should have to disclose upfront. I hate not knowing if I'm talking to a real person or not. Imagine spending hours in an online debate with what is ultimately a chatbot... what a waste. If I want to talk to a chatbot, I'd go to a chatbot. There is a reason we are here in the comments instead of just pasting the link into ChatGPT and going back and forth with it.
