I used to leave a megahal connected to my bouncer when I wasn't around

I don't see what the value of this would be. Why would I want to automate talking to my friends? If I'm not interested in talking with them, I could simply not do it. It also carries the risk of not actually knowing what was talked about or said, which could come up in real life and lead to issues. If a "friend" started using a bot to talk to me, they would not longer be considered a friend. That would be the end.

It was for fun, to see if it were possible and whether others could detect they were talking to a bot or not, you know, the hacker ethos and all. It's not meant to be taken seriously although looks like these days people unironically have LLM "friends."

Exactly. Pick friends that do not behave like dicks.

I think you underestimate how many people already run their opinions and responses through LLMs, even if the LLM is not writing them wholesale. Intelligence is part of the social game, so appearing to have it matters to people. Friend groups are just social groups of a certain kind, they're not really removed from all this.