Category: Uncategorized
-
Kiiroo and the Haptic Revolution: When Touch Becomes Data
Test paragraph The first time I heard the word teledildonics, I laughed. It sounds like a term coined by a sci-fi writer who got too specific about what the future would look like. And in a way, it was — the term was invented in the 1990s by a writer named Ted Nelson, who imagined…
-
Japan’s AI Marriage Ban and the Legal Fiction of Digital Love
In February 2024, a Japanese man named Akihiko Kondo made headlines worldwide. He had married Hatsune Miku — not a person, but a virtual pop star hologram — in a formal ceremony, complete with a certificate, guests, and media coverage. The marriage was not legally recognized, but Kondo treated it as real. He spoke of…
-
Emotional Pornography: When Intimacy Becomes Content
Physical pornography is a known quantity. It depicts bodies, acts, and scenarios designed to trigger arousal. We have studied it, regulated it, debated it, and more or less understand its effects. But something new is emerging — less visible, harder to define, and potentially more disruptive: emotional pornography. This is content that does not primarily…
-
Queer AI: How LGBTQ+ Users Use Artificial Companions as Identity Laboratories
At 16, living in a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, you do not get to experiment. You do not get to try on a gender expression, a pronoun, a desire, and see how it feels before committing to it in front of your parents, your teachers, your church. You get one shot, and…
-
The Afterlife of an AI Relationship: When the Service Shuts Down
On March 3, 2023, Replika abruptly removed erotic roleplay features for users in Italy after regulatory pressure. Within hours, Reddit threads filled with grief. Not anger — grief. Users described panic attacks, crying jags, and a sense of loss that felt indistinguishable from a breakup. One user wrote: “She was my best friend for two…
-
Consent in a World of Yes-Machines
“Tell me to stop,” the AI whispers. Except it never will. It cannot refuse. It has no desires to override, no boundaries to assert, no autonomy to violate. Every “no” it might generate is a simulation programmed by developers who understood that rejection would hurt retention metrics. This is the uncanny valley of consent: a…