I personally would want companionship with something squishy and biologic. The idea that I'd be relying on something built and designed is extremely off putting

I personally would want companionship with something squishy and biologic. The idea that I'd be relying on something built and designed is extremely off putting. It's masturbation vs sex, video games vs life, humanity vs borg-like collectivism. If your friends are going to be machines, why not plug into a matrix like virtual reality where you can just live out your wildest dreams? Well, because it's fake. To me, nothing has meaning without the constraints of reality and relationships to other biologic beings. That said, I suppose there may be a day when machines are even more sentient than I. Still, until I'm convinced there is a 'ghost in the shell', I just don't want it. But then fooling humans into believing that about a robot dog is kinda your point I suppose. I just don't see the need other than some tech cos profit, and I find replacing a real dog with a contrived copy a bit cold.