you’re living in a cyberpunk novel
A hyperreal simulacrum!
And I don't think it is bad to setup things that you like, like the google voice thing. It sounds fun (this is what tech should do dammit, and it could do it, no need to make it less reliable, more unethical, and more planet wrecking). Don't think you should feel bad about that tbh. And I don't think it that google betrayed its assistant, it is more google betrays its users and the people who create these smaller programs. See how they treated google reader, or wave, or plus or everything which doesn't gather a large enough userbase for them to just let it simmer on, on maintenance. While I don't think you should feel compassion for the program, the other users and the people developing this (or who have developed this) are real, and it sucks for them to see this creation be tossed away.
Not that feeling compassion for inanimate things isn't completely normal. Don't think you should feel bad about that either as long as you get on some level it is silly and don't try to marry your computer (and even then, if people are happy and not hurting anybody it overwrites almost all concerns I have). So yeah, the erring seems like a good conclusion. Even if I don't share it myself at times, and can be mean to inanimate objects/chatbots (I really hope that 'how can we help you' chatprompt after my dad got scammed was a chatbot, and not somebody being held hostage in Asia), I'm sympathetic to people saying how you treat those objects is also how you will eventually treat people you feel are below you. (or even the silly 'If machines become sentient that is how you would treat them' stuff. I don't believe in the IF yet, but it is a thing to keep in mind, see also how we treat animals).
Sidenote: Totally forgot Ellis existed, had really hoped he would be able to mend the problems he had caused, but when I checked how that ended up (a while back) seems he didn't keep to their promises and the women had given up on him.
While this is close to 'look at what you made me do territory'. We would sneer a lot less at him if he didn't blame us for everything. 'people who sneer made covid worse' (not the direct quote) for example was just silly, and if you look at the reaction of sneerclub at the time also not in the realm of reality. (But yes he will just say he said sneer by which he didn't mean sneerclub but people like us in general. Which is obv not a thing I fully agree with, but good motte/bailey).
It also is interesting, as Scott compared to the others we sneer at never really seems to break containment so to speak. I have seen people talk about Aella on bsky for example, Scott Alexander, Eliezer, lesswrong, EA, etc all come up. But Scott almost never does. (Yes, the 'untitled' affair was public, but that was a decade ago, and 6 months before r/sneerclub was created (and long before I joined) and also the whole broaden influence thing as you mentioned). And after all why should he, he is just a random professor, the only reason he is relevant for the broader picture is that he agrees with the AI doom stuff, and he gives the LW people some level of prestige (the only times I have brought him up is because he confirmed that Yarvin spends time personally emailing prestigious people like him but that is about Moldy). He is prob the only one whos sneering is just contained to sneerclub/awful.systems (which is why he should stop reading sc, he prob should also ignore more blog comments and emails (block Yarvin's email Scott, do it!)).