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AI will transform sex work but not intimacy
Relationship bots have the potential to make the market for fake intimacy much larger.
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An AI bot faces no emotional constraints and can be available and engaged all the time, says the writer.
PHOTO: UNSPLASH
Allison Schrager
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Most people are surprised to learn that sex work is often not about sex. What customers are paying for is a feeling of intimacy – and the market for intimacy, thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), is about to grow in a big way.
Technology may have created more demand for intimacy, but it also has the potential to create more supply. The latest generation of OpenAI’s agent, GPT-4o, has been described as game-changing and a little creepy. As it flirts with you, the bot behaves like the AI in the movie Her, as chief executive Sam Altman hinted before its release. There is already at least one relationship bot, called Replika, and more will surely follow. And they will only get better.
