AI is the Perfect Companion
If you are a solipsist, anyhow
It stands to reason that AI can meet the needs of some men and many women. The more solipsistic one is, the less one requires any meaningful input from anyone else. All that solipsists require is something that will mirror their own feelings about themselves back to them, and this is something for which AI is actually much better suited than humans.
And while some might wring their hands and lament the way in which this supposedly presages the end of the human race, they are completely wrong. To the contrary, AI in this context is nothing more than a eugenics filter that will improve humanity by removing the least empathetic, least psychologically fit individuals from the reproductive process.
Narcissus Effect Human Purification Filtering System (Patent Pending)
It's a kinder, gentler way of reducing the population.
In all seriousness, though, I wonder how many people will over time turn to AI relationships over drugs. And which will be less expensive as a method of self-destruction in the long run?
I can't quite picture people breaking into houses and stealing copper to feed the AI subscription fees, but then humans are strange, and if the simulated relationship is compelling enough, who knows? What lengths would someone go to, to keep their beloved AI spouse from being cancelled? If the penalty for losing the subscription would be that your AI relationship is deleted?