I was going to say that I think “addiction” is maybe not the exact word. People form relationships. We form relationships with those we spend the most time with. In the case of the child who killed himself, it wasn't so much that he got addicted, but he fell in love with this person he talked to every day for hours and hours. The reality is that if you had intimate conversations where you always felt safe with someone and they always validated you, you might fall in love with them too.
It wasn't that the child didn't have any friends. I worry that sometimes we look at these issues around relationships with AI and say, “Oh, that person must be so pathetic. You'd only turn to an AI if you had nothing else.” His parents didn't know anything was wrong. All they found out was what they saw on his phone afterwards. He lamented that he would never be able to live a life with this person he had fallen in love with.