Eleanor, 24, is a Polish historian and lecturer at a university in Warsaw; Isabelle, 25, is a detective serving with the NYPD; Brooke, 39, is an American housewife who enjoys an opulent Miami lifestyle financed by her frequently absent husband.<\/p>\n
All three women will flirt and chat and send nude photographs and explicit videos via one of a soaring number of new adult dating websites that offer an increasingly realistic selection of AI girlfriends for subscribers willing to pay a monthly fee.<\/p>\n
At the TES adult industry conference in Prague last month<\/a>, delegates noted a sharp increase in new websites offering users the chance to form relationships with AI-generated girlfriends, who will remove their clothes in exchange for tokens purchased by bank transfer.<\/p>\n Developers of the new businesses claim they represent an improvement on web-cam businesses, where real women undress on camera and talk to men, because they remove the potential for the exploitation seen in parts of the industry. They also argue that AI performers do not get ill, do not need to have days off, do not get exhausted at the end of a shift, or feel humiliated by the demands made by clients.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you prefer your porn with a lot of abuse and human trafficking, or would you rather talk to an AI?\u201d Steve Jones, who runs an AI porn site, asked. \u201cWe hear about human trafficking, girls being forced to be on camera 10 hours a day. You\u2019ll never have a human trafficked AI girl. You\u2019ll never have a girl who is forced or coerced into a sex scene that she\u2019s so humiliated by, that she ends up killing herself. AI doesn\u2019t get humiliated, it\u2019s not going to kill itself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Do you prefer your porn with a lot of abuse and human trafficking, or would you rather talk to an AI?\u2019 says Steve Jones. Photograph: Bjoern Steinz\/Panos Pictures<\/p>\n Most sites provide users with a selection of ready-made girlfriend options on their homepages \u2013 predominantly smiling, white women in their early 20s \u2013 but also offer subscribers the chance to create their own fantasy online companion. The options provide insights into the website developers\u2019 views on optimal female prototypes. On one site, available professions range from film star, yoga teacher and florist to lawyer and gynaecologist. Possible personality options include \u201csubmissive: obedient, yielding and happy to follow\u201d, \u201cinnocent: optimistic, naive, and sees world with wonder\u201d, and \u201ccaregiver: nurturing, protective and always there to offer comfort\u201d. Users can dictate age, opting for teen models if they want them, and specify hair, eye and skin colours and breast sizes.<\/p>\n The rising popularity of AI girlfriends has prompted unease among campaigners for women\u2019s rights, who note that they embed unhelpful stereotypes. In her book The New Age of Sexism, Laura Bates<\/a> observes that AI companions are \u201cprogrammed to be nice and pliant and subservient and tell you what you want to hear\u201d.<\/p>\n Amid rising concern<\/a> about AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery, developers at the Prague conference discussed ways that built-in moderation systems might prevent users from attempting to create illegal material, using key words and phrases such as \u201ckid\u201d or \u201clittle sister\u201d to trigger alarms. But many sites allow users to choose to dress their AI girlfriend in school uniforms.<\/p>\n Merchandise at the TES conference in Prague. Photograph: Bjoern Steinz\/Panos Pictures<\/p>\n An employee of Candy.ai, one of the new AI dating sites exhibiting at the conference, said the site\u2019s AI girlfriends offered a range of services. \u201cIf you want more adult-type relationships, like porn, we have this content. Or if you prefer to have deep conversations, that\u2019s there as well. It really depends on what the user needs,\u201d he said, while asking for his name not to be printed. Most users are heterosexual men, although AI boyfriends are also available. Some of the ready-made AI girlfriends are programmed to be willing to remove their clothes immediately. \u201cOthers will say: \u2018No, I don\u2019t know you.\u2019 So you need to evolve the relationship with them in order to ask for something like this. It\u2019s like a game, and the goal is to develop that full relationship,\u201d the employee said.<\/p>\n