There is no moral imperative to allow predatory behavior. We can recognize the difficulty many experience with romantic relationships without blessing others to take advantage of them.

I also very much doubt that people struggling with romantic relationships actually show any measure of mental health improvement after engaging with these AI bots. I imagine the pattern is one of addiction, where participants feel better while actively using the product but then worse at baseline because none of their actual problems have improved.

We are slowly stripping everyone of the will to build meaningful lives by fulfilling all wants with soulless instant gratification. No perfection of AI/sex work or whatever can match actual intimacy with someone.

That is at the root of most of our current societal ills I believe. Bad economy, Bad job market, etc. are all a smokescreen over the fact that people can escape their problems. You can live a numb half-life and avoid any crisis that might trigger real change.

If a bad economic outlook was all it took to wipe out the birth rate we would never have survived the great depression or other 10,000 hard times we have endured as a species.

Having an actual romantic partner provides physical and emotional intimacy.

Hiring a sex worker provides physical intimacy and no emotional intimacy (unless you're paying for that as well, I suppose), but lonely people can project onto the SW and mistake physical intimacy for emotional intimacy. That can be unhealthy.

With this, there's no physical intimacy and a simulated level of barebones interaction, meaning that you're getting the physical release but no actual intimacy and none of the other stuff that comes with any sort of relationship, let alone a romantic one, let alone a healthy and rewarding romantic one.

There's a time and a place for this, but it's a digital sex toy and that's all. AI isn't filling the void of a romantic partner any more than eating a bacon double cheeseburger every day is filling the void of a healthy balanced diet. It keeps the body going, but it doesn't deliver what you and your body need to thrive.

(All of this outside of the context of asexual/aromantic individuals, who may or may not need or want or be comfortable with any level of any of this and for whom this might be the perfect product for all I know.)