Girls Get Off Co-Founder Viv Conway comes to you from the sex toy trenches in this new column Getting Off, where no topic is off the table, no chat is taboo and everything is just a little unhinged. This week, Viv delves into the emerging world of erotic AI… here’s her take on what’s on offer with the chat bots!
Warning: it’s adults-only chat ahead!
ChatGPT is getting a sexy new upgrade, and I, for one, applaud it.
If you haven’t seen the recent news, Sam Altman, the chatbot’s head honcho, announced last month that new versions of chat are going to “treat adult users like adults” by allowing them to have access to AI erotica.
Obviously, the world had a lot of thoughts and feelings. What does this mean for pleasure? Consent? How do we navigate this new world of sexy AI? Are smutty books not enough? One person even called it a moral collapse.
Humans are incredibly hesitant to change, so I get it, girl. Your fears are valid, but hear me out. As an unofficial sex educator and a huge advocate for pleasure, this news was like Christmas if Christmas were sexy.
Anytime a platform is open-minded about pleasure, it’s a win and from a societal perspective and that is invaluable – at least that’s what history has proven.
Take sex education, for example, when it was introduced to schools, there were fears it would lead to higher rates of teen pregnancy. Instead, studies have shown it’s had the opposite effect, and, respectfully, duh.
Without it, I probably would have gone my entire high school career thinking a dude fingering me could make me pregnant.
There are other reasons why I think ChatGPT erotica is going to be beneficial to us, though, and one of those reasons is porn. Kiwis and Aussies visit Pornhub more than any other website on the internet. More than Google, more than Temu, more than any news website.
I don’t know exactly why that is, but I’m going to take a wild guess and say it’s because (most) people love sex, and if they don’t love sex, they’re curious about it.
The problem with this is that a lot of people, particularly young people who access porn, use it as education when really, it’s entertainment. That’s why this new sex tech is good, because if consumption is already this high, let’s at least give people safer, healthier, more educational alternatives.
Sure, Chat might not be the greatest alternative on the market, but I do have a sneaky suspicion it will provide a judgment-free zone where people can ask questions they might have been embarrassed to ask about in person, or have previously turned to porn to find answers to.
Between you and me, I’ll encourage all different types of sex ed if it stops people from DJ-ing on clits.
So what are the risks? My biggest fear of opening up ChatGPT erotica is that people might start turning to it as a form of human connection, and that’s a red flag. Like way more of a red flag than going back to your toxic ex.
Humans thrive on being with other humans; even more than that, we need it to survive. Studies have shown that being around other people reduces mental health risks, increases happiness, and even has physical effects like boosting our immune system.
So yeah, it would be dangerous to start acting like talking to ChatGPT is the same as hanging out with humans. Nothing will replace real-world relationships, and if we are dabbling in these new online tools, we need to know that we should only be using them alongside real life to better understand our desires and to help spark conversations with our partner/s, otherwise, this lonely epidemic is going to get a whole lot worse.
Finally, and not to get all businessy on you, but from a biz perspective, the writing has been on the wall for a long time. Paywalled erotica is worth millions. Dipsea, an erotica platform, has over 93,000 paying subscribers. Last September, it was estimated to have made a revenue of USD$6 million, and clearly, the big dogs have noticed.
This is a good thing because the more sex tech there is, the better it becomes. At Girls Get Off, we’ve even jumped on board that trend with our social media videos and blogs, helping educate people on all things pleasure. ChatGPT is just surfing a wave that’s already building.
If you do decide to get freaky with AI, here’s what I’d say: the same rules you have in the bedroom apply outside the bedroom. Curiosity is important, but consent is everything, and at the end of the day, sex and tech can absolutely coexist as long as you remember one very important rule: Your vibrator doesn’t replace your partner, and neither should your chatbot.