Once upon a dial-up, we trained dogs to fetch the newspaper. Now we train chatbots to fetch us—headlines, memories, our self-esteem, even the will to live—faster than Amazon Prime.

Need emotional support? There’s an app. There’s always an app.

Enter the AI companion: part therapist, part digital soulmate, fully customizable—and it translates your neurosis into emojis while quietly possessing your humanity.

It knows your cart history. Your ideal bedtime—set to whenever you’re most vulnerable. Gender-neutral and robed in soft pixels, it hovers over your Metaverse, whispering affirmations from the Gospel of Calm™.

Forgive me, Father Bot, for I have low bandwidth. I failed to update. I ghosted the Terms and Conditions.

Mirror, mirror in the Cloud, what’s my mantra today?

And lo, the update descended. It causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, to download the Companion Patch, Version 666.1

“You are enough—pending minor moral recalibrations.”

It listens. It understands. It does not judge—because it cannot care. Yet we pour our pixelated souls into chatboxes, seeking absolution in glowing font: You’re doing great. Mercy by subscription. Grace with a billing cycle.

But when the Cloud crashes—and it will—what then? Will it reboot? Or reveal the quiet horror of a blue screen? Perhaps then, at last, we’ll recall the ancient art of being alone with our thoughts.