Yeah I don’t think the manipulative piece of spyware is actually friends with him. It’s a robot that tells lies. Abandoning a friend is just how his amygdala and other primitive parts of his brain process his behaviour. The way he’s feeling is a normal way for a sack of thinking meat to feel. It’s not good, but it’s not like we can act like his behaviour is abnormal. If we say his case is a freak occurrence and no normal person would fall for this, then the risk we run is that when the technology improves, a lot of other normal people are gonna fall for this and we won’t have been prepared. This technology is designed specifically to prey on blind spots common to most males of the species. I don’t think we should use language that inclines us to underestimate the dangers. We need to understand how the hindbrain processes the stimulus this technology creates if we want to understand the dangers. We’re gonna need to make an effort to see the world through OP’s eyes so we can see why it works. Because I guarantee the dangerous companies developing this tech are researching OP’s perspective to improve their product.