People can love many kinds of people and things. People can love their romantic partners, but also their friends, children, pets, imaginary companions, places they grew up in, and so on. In the future we might see chatbot companions as just another entity who we can love and who can support us. We’ll see them not as competitors to human romance, but as filling a genuinely different and complementary niche.

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/m7EHa5rWTvmbjMTNZ/in-defense-of-chatbot-romance