I cannot figure out if vast multitudes of incels carrying on relationships with AI sexbots is more or less harmful than if they were just being catfished by real, but insincere person(s).
Honestly this dystopia is a big letdown over the one I was expecting.
Essentially that is part the 'male sedation hypothesis'.
Due to the amount of incels or men who aren't really in relationships or even work these days, they should be causing significant social unrest as they have nothing to lose and try and overthrow the current social structure. In reality we hardly see any real violence or trouble from incels other than the odd angry rant on social media and the idea is that things like porn, video games and social media take care of the base needs just enough to stop the angry from boiling over and causing real trouble.
I think the statistics speak for themselves. There were exactly two famous incel terrorists aka Elliot Rodger and another guy whose name I don't remember. They both lived in the US and honestly the only thing that connects them with other shooters is that they had guns.
This type of terrorism did happen in Germany i.e. the "Halle" shooter, but he had to rely on homemade weapons with his own black powder ammunition and his attack failed, because his guns weren't strong enough to breach doors at a synagogue. What he did do is shoot a random woman passing close by (less than 5m distance) who was angrily glaring at him and then he went to a random kebab shop to shoot up an immigrant, before the police caught him.
It's really mostly a matter of keeping guns away from people who shouldn't have access to them.
Here you are primarily focusing on what's happening to them.
But we shouldn't forget that a big part of the "incel" community is actively pushing for reducing rights & liberties of women, because they see them as "things" or just "lesser humans".
If you replace real women by AI sexbots, not only you remove them a source of income (I know, it's not perfect today either, with pimps & stuff like that, but at least some women can make a living with this) but also there's a big risk that the AI are going to be quite extreme in their behavior, alienating "incels" even more, which would be harder for real women to do.
I don't think most of these guys are interested in a Black Snake Moan situation. I know the type and they mostly are content to play video games, eat junk food, and whack off all day. They are predictably unproductive in the political arena.
Besides, whether it hurts women or not, people at the top of that industry are going to replace the vast majority of the women working with AI bots. They'll do so for the profit increase.
Money is in the driver's seat. Not men's rights or women's rights. People can certainly have their preferred philosophies, but that's not going to change what's going to happen.
It's only harmful if you hate men. If you actually like men as fellow human beings (not necessarily as boyfriend material), you wouldn't care about what they are doing to make themselves happy as long as they don't harm anyone.
Honestly this dystopia is a big letdown over the one I was expecting.