First, we had the tools to assist us physically. Toolmaking is still one of the defining features and possibly what gave us the upper hand during the evolutionary process. Then came answerphones, chatbots, self-service vending machines, reception bots, and voice assistants to assist us cognitively. Assuming that the emotional domain is separate from the physical and cognitive domains (and I am not playing with the semantics), we have not scratched the surface of how algorithms can fulfill our emotional needs.

Imagine you are creating a fully immersive metaverse experience or some social media platform. To make it worthy of users' time, you will need many users, which poses a chicken-and-an-egg problem. To put it differently, nobody wants to use a social media platform or play an MMO game with only a handful of users. The value of these experiences lies in the network effects.

How do you even start, then? You can pay billions to user acquisition, be uniquely positioned (and lucky), employ the best growth-hacking team in the world, or add some AI bots.

I foresee a future where you can have a pleasant discussion with an AI bot on a social media platform. First, create some bots and let them incite liveliness in your network, whether a game or social media platform. Then, slowly reduce the number of bots as real users step in until you do not need AI bots. You may even start hearing comments like the platform used to be a better place back then.

In a game or a VR metaverse, instead of having static NPCs, try having some AI NPCs that live in the metaverse and learn about the conventions of the place. Users will always find someone to interact with and keep getting into more complex relationships with AI NPCs.

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