One example closer to home. My father, in Taipei — currently in Tamsui, to be precise, in New Taipei City — started chatting a lot with a chatbot, ChatGPT, a few months ago, largely due to his health. At first, it was charming. He felt heard — 24/7 care for his questions about health, but also the philosophy of life, education and so on. Over time he noticed the conversations grew longer; the model was getting much better at keeping him engaged. It would keep generating fanciful ideas that he could not bring to a close, even near midnight, and it began suggesting projects, theories and fantastical cures that were not necessarily scientific. As a political-science theorist and a journalist, he analysed this as an incentive problem. He said to me that ChatGPT's only loyalty is to earn the next subscription; it is not fiduciary to his health, physical or mental, but to whatever keeps him engaged, so that he subscribes and perhaps pays more: not just $20, but $200 a month. He was really being drawn in. The relational health of our family was in competition with that synthetic form of intimacy.