Honestly, I think people who have explicitly replaced children with pets are kind of pathetic. I'm not condemning anyone or demanding that others make the choices I have, but I find something very sad about those "I love my grand-dog" bumper stickers. Perhaps those people are perfectly happy, but I can't help but see a huge gap between what a grandchild can provide vs. your child having a dog that you love.

I personally don't, and I think it's because pets make demands of you. Walking a dog, making sure your cat is up to date on vaccines, feeding your fish, etc. These all require some level of sacrifice, which strikes me as inherently un-pathetic.

Which points the way to a new Turing test. Something like: "Can an AI credibly make a demand of the user?"

Right. But if AI girlfriend doesn't make demands to you, then it's just a boring novelty, isn't it? Why engage with something like that, it's like cheating in a computer game. How it can make you happy?

I feel the problem you paint will solve itself. It doesn't seem to me it will have worse outcomes than computer gaming.