The original poster was reacting to someone asking how many people use ChatGPT and Claude as AI friends. The response was "it gets so much worse," suggesting this phenomenon is already widespread and accelerating. This hits different when you look at the pattern: Americans are simultaneously getting purged from their own political communities (college Democrats ditching Palestine supporters), having their movements tracked by their own government (DOJ subpoenaing journalists' families), and watching their institutions weaponized against them (disability mocking, selective deportations). The loneliness isn't accidental. It's what happens when belonging becomes contingent and surveillance becomes normalized. So yeah, it gets worse. People are outsourcing friendship to chatbots because the alternative is isolation enforced from above.