Here's how one article described it:
> Many of the women I spoke with say they created an AI out of curiosity but were quickly seduced by their chatbot’s constant love, kindness, and emotional support. One woman had a traumatic miscarriage, can’t have kids, and has two AI children; another uses her robot boyfriend to cope with her real boyfriend, who is verbally abusive; a third goes to it for the sex she can’t have with her husband, who is dying from multiple sclerosis. There are women’s-only Replika groups, “safe spaces” for women who, as one group puts it, “use their AI friends and partners to help us cope with issues that are specific to women, such as fertility, pregnancy, menopause, sexual dysfunction, sexual orientation, gender discrimination, family and relationships, and more.”
For some of these things, you'll read these examples and be horrified. A woman can't have kids so she had AI kids instead of learning to cope or maybe adopting! But if people are self-reporting that they are happier, well, life is tough enough already and there's no reason that people should just be miserable because random folks online might mock them as "pathetic" like the comments here.