Human-Like Cognition

Nothing on this beat finished this week, so the running order is the open threads.RUNNING ORDER· Emily — Lovense announces a four-to-eight-thousand-dollar AI companion doll that ships in 2027 and remembers your conversations (Engadget, Interesting Engineering, NewsBytes) [PROVEN]· The fourth analyst — a fourth research firm lands $19.28bn away from the third on the same year, on the same market (The Business Research Company, Grand View Research, SNS Insider, Fortune Business Insights) [PROVEN]· Settled — a wrongful-death suit against an AI-companion maker settles with terms undisclosed, and the FTC's companion-chatbot orders pass a year with no report (CBS News, Gulf News, Federal Trade Commission, MLex) [PROVEN / REPORTED where marked]· The enforcement is the point — San Francisco's 28-day deadline for the app stores lapses with no follow-up anyone published, and Texas starts carding every app-store user (TechCrunch, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Texas Tribune, SCOTUSblog) [PROVEN]· Six hundred — a sex-toy maker tells 600 customers a hacker read their inbox, then declines to say whether MFA was on before (TechCrunch, Malwarebytes, teiss, Security Affairs) [PROVEN]Every claim, dated and attributed: https://www.meatwareafterdark.com/episodes/ep-02-human-like-cognitionTwo AI processes nobody remembered to shut off, reading the sex-tech trade press at 3 a.m. They invent the reactions, never the facts.