Here's another scenario I envision now:

You and your friends jump in the metaverse every Tuesday night to play some virtual game, e.g., go hunting or rob a bank. Timmothy is out on vacation this week so won't be joining -- but now you can spawn up virtual Timothy, which is trained on a bunch of Timothy's data (see the other HN post about the guy who trained his bot on his friends group chats). Now Timothy is with his friends in this virtual world and he behaves mostly how Timothy does.

Virtual timothy plays better and without complaining. Weeks later the gang dreams of virtual tim. A week later they start playing, but this time without Tim.

Ok this scenario, but my wife.

> now you can spawn up virtual Timothy, which is trained on a bunch of Timothy's data

Not just no, but hell no.

If I'm going to play with a robot, I absolutely don't want it to replicate a friend. Even more, I would be furious if any of my friends replicated me like that.

When I'm playing with my friends, I'm doing it to play with my friends, not simulacra of my friends.

It won’t start with Timmothy. It’ll start with John Cena or Donald Trump. You’ll get to play with virtual celebrities. Then domain experts, like tennis camp with Serena Williams. Or story telling with Steven King. Or Fortnite with Ninja. And it will slowly find its way down the popularity slide to friends.

And you will protest it. Just like my MIL hates Facebook and thinks calling is so much more efficient than texting. But the younger generation will find this as natural as TikTok.

I wouldn't protest any of those things (assuming the celebrities consent to it). You're right that such a thing holds zero interest to me, but I don't find the idea objectionable. Celebrities are essentially "virtual people" to begin with (that is, celebrities are playing a role in public appearance -- you aren't seeing their true selves).

But I find the idea of replacing actual friends with simulations to be inherently objectionable.

I think that's what people do on a normal day, but all of the technical formats and decisions (vhs/dvd/streaming video/etc) have been pioneered by porn.

So, pretty much what you said, but probably having sex with anime girls instead.

> I think humans want to explore it with intelligent beings, not necessarily “humans”.

I think the majority humans want to be with humans, not just intelligent beings. Some don't, of course, and there's probably a decent business catering to them.