> The second reason that such systems are extremely unlikely to emerge is that even if it would be doable technically, it would be extremely expensive to a company. And there would be literally no demand for it, because the overwhelming majority of people don't care about talking to robots. They already don't have enough time to spend with their children, partners, friends, parents... why would anyone waste time with a fake person? No company would invest the billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars, to solve this problem in the next few hundred years.

You've missed the point. Why would people watch a TV show and grow to love/hate characters, where there's no interaction between you and them, and all the lines, actions and scenes are scripted and rehearsed. They certainly don't have time to do it, and have children, partners, friends, parents. They would surely not binge watch, schedule time to watch new episodes come rain hail or shine or spend big bucks to visit filming locations etc.

Companies will invest stupid amounts of money in AI that has human qualities. Take the TV Show example: the AI is the "show" and each day they get into entertaining or emotional circumstances that you can "catch up" about, joke about etc. Their charisma is highly engineered to be incredibly engaging and fun to talk to, so you keep coming back for more. Over time they become a "good friend" that you love talking to. They never rebuff you, snub you, have no time for you, make fun of you (too much, just enough to joke around and have some banter). But why do they keep telling you how great Pepsi's new flavours are??