How much will you trust an AI chatbot powered by Meta to be your friend? Even if you won’t, other people are already making close connections with “AI companions” or “falling in love” with ChatGPT. Beyond the obvious concern that AI “friends” are hallucinating, unthinking, obsequious algorithms that will never challenge you in the way a real friend might, it’s also worth remembering who AI actually works for. Weaponizing that alienation, as the antagonists of The Net do, can of course be used for identity theft. The Net appeared at a time when the internet was only faintly understood as the new Wild West.