AI has the potential to make the market for fake intimacy much larger. People can subscribe for a fraction of the cost of a human sex worker, and with no stigma or legal consequences.
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, is about to grow in a big way.
In one sense, these AI bots are like nothing we’ve ever seen before. In another, they are simply another example of labor market displacement, this time in the world’s oldest profession. I am sorry to sound like an economist, but I did write a book calledAs I note in the book, one of the highest-paid sex services is something called the “girlfriend experience,” known in the industry as “GFE” .
My working assumption is that if a market exists, there is a good reason for it. That said, I am conflicted about women selling intimacy. Talking to women for my book, I felt uneasy; I am not sure intimacy is, or could be, a service that can be bought and sold. Once money is exchanged, intimacy becomes something different. It lacks the mutuality that makes real intimacy so valuable. It is less demanding but also less satisfying.The same is true for what AI bots will offer.
That raises some hard questions, economically speaking: Does a market for false intimacy create negative externalities that require regulation? Or is it just sort of icky, and we should get over our moralistic tendencies?Assuming all data is secure and private — granted, not always a safe assumption — the main concern is that the widespread availability of quasi-intimacy on demand will result in fewer people bothering to find a real relationship.
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