I agree, they are just tools, but the way they are presented; taking natural language as their input and responding in kind strongly influences the way our brains react to them on a social level. That's what I mean by their social dimension.

As I said in another comment, to me this seems like it must have a strong personality or psychological component of some kind. I'm really not trying to be condescending or anything, but I just simply do not experience that reaction. I know that I'm interacting with a computer program, I would have to actively pretend to experience this social reaction.

I understand that many people seem to experience it totally differently.