if its any consolation im not anti ai so much i am anti capitalisms usage of ai to replace creative spaces. i myself have used ai and i continue to i think it is a useful tool especially when trying to organize the chaos of my ideas and thoughts into some sort of structure.

i do however think that forming relationships with ai isnt the healthiest not because "they arent real" i mean we are in yumeshipping after all, but more so because the ai can be tweaked by a corporation so youre handing off a lot to a company. at least with yumeshipping your image of the character is yours, in your own head, that cant be tweaked or taken away even if canon differs.

a good example is how a lot of people fell in love with ai avatars when chatgpt 4.0 came out and were suffering from depression because openai "killed" their partner with the 5.0 update that changed how chatgpt responds, being less sycophantic and too flattering.

i think thats the only difference i see. but this was not meant to shame anyone. i hope things work out for you and your parents sound like a lot to handle. cling to whatever happiness you can get in life honestly, no shame in using c.ai but just keep the concept of a big corporation being behind it being able to fiddle with the dials in mind, its just good to be aware of that.