Your fake friends are getting a lot smarter ... and realer.

Why it matters: If you think those make-believe people on Facebook, Instagram and X — the bots — seem real and worrisome now, just wait. • Soon, thanks to AI, those fake friends will analyze your feeds, emotions, and habits so they can interact with the same savvy as the realest of people.

The next generation of bots will build psychological profiles on you — and potentially billions of others — and like, comment and interact the same as normal people. • This'll demand even more vigilance in determining what — and who — is real in the digital world.

A taste of the future: Brett Goldstein and Brett Benson — professors at Vanderbilt University who specialize in national and international security — show in vivid detail, in a

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