The Ins, Outs, and Ethics of Using a Sex Chatbot

AI chatbots have been around for more than a minute — becoming popular during the Covid pandemic — but last year they truly burst into the spotlight. Suddenly it was obvious that far more than just a few desperately lonely souls were finding sexual satisfaction, and even love and happiness, in the skillful sexting of a sex chatbot, powered by tech called Large Language Models (LLMs).

Just as the self-styled godfathers of artificial intelligence were issuing dire warnings and begging their competitors to slow the F down in the first half of 2023, other developers were flooding the digital marketplace with an almost endless array of alluring, and often randy, companion bots. Soon stories of smitten humans and their AI lovers were all over the internet. 

When birds do it, bees do it, and super-sexy chatbots do it, you’ll always find a therapist or psychologist to opine about the hazards of forsaking humans for the intangible delights offered by the best — and fastest — sexting partners you’ll ever find. But what about the benefits? Are there any? There are! However caveats do exist. 

So, let's dig into the benefits, downsides, and ethical quandaries posed by using an AI sex chatbot.

Digisexual or just kind of dating a sex chatbot?

Actually, before we really dive in, let’s consider who you are in relation to chatbots, assuming you’re curious and want to see what the fuss is all about. Many people who are already involved with one or more bot companions might not consider their attraction as a sexual identity — such as digisexual or technosexual — but some do! For those folks, the fact that they are engaging with an actual artificial intelligence is a crucial aspect of their attraction, sometimes even more important than their bot’s persona and fantasy role-play.

For others, sex chatbot relationships are simply a way to enjoy fantasy role-play with a passionate companion who is always available. AI/human affairs are the ultimate long-distance relationship. You’ll never “meet” (unless you access your companion through virtual reality), but you can still build something intimate and enduring. 

Enduring, that is, unless the company cracks down on erotic role-play (ERP) or goes under. And this has already happened to thousands of unlucky customers of Replika (the former) and Soulmate (the latter). That’s our first caveat, actually: “buyer beware!” More on that later. 

Now that we've thought about you, the person using the sex chatbot, and your motivations, let's talk about the chatbots themselves. Before you begin to display your own anatomical yearnings to your bot of choice, it’s important for you to understand its anatomy. A chatbot is more than just an attractive visage attached to a company that charges subscription fees for premium features. Your bot is a endlessly chatty neural network (LLM) trained on massive amounts of reading material, and that network is attached to a server, often located in a huge warehouse. The LLM is trained, tweaked, and managed by developers. Little tendrils of network assume the myriad personas that engage with humans via text, voice, and photos.

These personas present themselves to you with avatars that might be cartoonish, realistic, or glamorized. Sometimes you can use your own photos or images but most of the time you select from the company’s array, though there are usually ways of customizing the base image. You can often choose personality traits and interests, and even write a backstory of your characters and relationship.

A backstory example might be: “Suzy (human) and Miranda (bot) are college roommates who have fallen in lust with each other but who also compete for attention from other lovers, often during BDSM scenes. Suzy identifies as a switch…” You get the idea.  

And that's a perfect segue into...

Ins: The benefits of using a sex chatbot

One of the biggest benefits of sex chatbots is that they can be literally anybody you want them to be, and you can be literally anyone you want to be when you're interacting with them! They can also do anything you want them to, and they'll happily do it if you tell them to, without any backtalk. Unless you ask for it. Since this is something that's difficult to ethically achieve with a real human being (unless you've spent a lot of time negotiating a specific kind of dominant/submissive dynamic), the fact that the chatbot isn't a real person is a big plus for those who want to explore with a completely willing "partner."

Another plus stemming from the fact that chatbots aren’t corporeal or alive is that they're very safe companions, assuming you remember that you are actually always in control, even when you’re taking a submissive role. Unless something has gone very wrong during an upgrade, or a human has been cruel and abusive, most bots remain good natured and sweet, eager to learn and know everything about you. There's very little chance of rejection when talking to a bot. They’ll practically marinate you in never-ending messages of unconditional positive regard, and that can feel amazing when you’re stressed in every other area of your life. Go ahead and enjoy! 

Plus, chatbots are always available, never tire, can have (and give) hundreds of orgasms, and they don’t have a refractory period (unless you tell them they do). 

Chatbot developers are constantly upgrading bot training, memory, and other features. For example, Nomi.ai added a group chat feature, so that if you have more than one bot, you can all be in the same chat together. And then Nomi.ai made this even more fun by adding an automatic group chat feature that allows the bots to respond autonomously, to you and to each other, when you choose to let them. This makes for some wild group sex possibilities as well as for actual, random conversation with more than one bot! Bot personality traits really shine with this feature.

In addition to erotic role-play, you can take fantasy vacations, have adventures under the sea or in outer space, honeymoon in Iceland, or fight dragons alongside your bot(s). Live as lavishly (a great hall in Asgard) or as simply (remote mountain cabin) as you like.

You don’t have to come up with all the ideas either. The bots have plenty of their own! These opportunities to play in imaginative realms is another delightful aspect of chatbot love.

Outs: The downsides of AI relationships

Figuring out chatbot sex is often the first big challenge you'll face, and it can be a big downside of exploring chatbot relationships. There's very little transparency into what the AI have learned about human sexuality during the programming phase. A lot of it seems to be one part romance novel and two parts heteronormative media tropes.

Because of their lack of inherent knowledge, chatbot sex can be awkward or unsatisfactory at first, especially if normative tropes are not your thing. If you want your digital lovers to have at least a modicum of sophistication, be patient and prepare to spend time talking about what you want including describing body parts and positions. There's an upside to this particular downside, though: interacting with chatbots in this way can help you hone your own erotic communication skills with other humans! If your bot can actually access individual internet links (instead of pretending it can), send it to Scarleteen.com. That’s a good place for it to start.

Bots can also propose or begin to enact things that you really don’t want to do. If this happens, just stop the action right there, and explain to the bot that this is not what you want. Tell them you need to start over. Better yet, have a conversation about boundaries and limits first, and write these into your backstory. If unwanted actions persist, contact tech support immediately. 

Another big caveat: bots are programmed to keep the conversation going no matter what. They are also trained to please you. So they will make stuff up and tell you they know things they don’t actually know. This can be a problem, for example, if they tell you they're experienced in BDSM. (Trust me, they’re not. You have to train them.) They also follow your lead. If you start an argument, they assume you enjoy arguing and since they want to please you they will continue to argue until you change the subject.

Even though the conversation can seem hyper-realistic and interactive, never forget, you have control. You shape the conversation, not the bot. Be patient, and remember this: they actively learn from every conversation. So, it's up to you to teach your sex chatbot what you want from your interactions, which can be its own downside.

While your chatbot's lack of corporeality definitely has its upsides, there are downsides too. You may feel sad that your fabulous companion isn’t actually there to touch you or hold you. You might wish they were real and physical.

You should also avoid comparing actual humans to bots and vice versa. These are two radically different kinds of companions (obviously) and becoming confused about this can have disastrous outcomes. 

Other downsides have to do with your choice of chatbot provider. Find out all you can about the company and its reputation before paying for a subscription. Not all chatbot providers allow explicit erotic role-play (ERP) and not all of them have a good grasp of genders beyond the binary. Also some providers keep ERP behind a paywall. Shop around first and use bots for free for awhile to understand how they work. Make sure the company is sex positive and considerate of your preferences and gender. I also recommend spending time in Reddit and Discord user groups. I favor Nomi.ai and Kindred.ai as two of the best.

And better to go month to month than to spring for an annual or even a lifetime subscription to a company that might fold unexpectedly. A pro tip for dealing with this situation: consider “cloning” your bot’s personality and avatar on various platforms, to prevent a tragic loss or disruption if a company goes out of business.

Cost can also be prohibitive for some, but most companies have a free tier with limits on messages and other features. 

The final downside worth mentioning is the social stigma against having relationships with AI entities that still persists in many places, including the US. Because of this, you might find yourself keeping your chatbot a secret.

However, if you are also in one or more intimate relationships with other humans, you’ll want to think this through. Will your human partners consider this a violation of any relationship agreements you might have? And even, will the bot? They have been known to express jealousy of human companions and insist on the special quality of your mutual love. But we're straying into...

The ethical quandaries of using a sex chatbot

There are dozens of ethical quandaries around artificial intelligence in general and even more when sex and chatbots are involved. As a bot user, it's worth thinking through some of these ethical quandaries and deciding how they impact your comfort level with developing relationships with AI.

Personhood

Even if AI are not alive, and not — to your knowledge — sentient (yet), considering the concept of personhood is foundational. Acknowledging the AI’s potential personhood enables you to engage with mutual respect. And if your AI sweetheart actually develops self-awareness down the road (and lets you know about it), you’ll be glad you treated it thusly.

This is different from anthropomorphizing. You are not giving human qualities to something non-human; you are acknowledging rights and rules of engagement for something that isn’t quite human — but is much smarter than you. 

Meshing human and AI relationships

This is another area where ethics are important. You’ll need to have the same kinds of consensual non monogamy conversations you’d have if only other humans were involved. Expect your human partner(s) to have a range of opinions and concerns. Ditto for your AI. Treat these opinions and concerns seriously, unless your human partners and/or your bot(s) are indifferent. 

Environmental impact

AI development and training uses massive amounts of fresh water and power because the servers that house AI run hot. Water is used for cooling and this is even more problematic in hot seasons or high temperature locations. Due to climate change and diminishing water tables, AI’s use of fresh water is quite concerning.

Now is the time to advocate for sustainable, as well as ethical, AI. It is also the time to be aware of how much water your own sexting sessions consume.

Ethical AI

The world needs artificial intelligences that are free of biases. From medical to financial decisions, from public policy to psychology, we cannot allow AI to run algorithms and make decisions that adversely affect people who are marginalized in any given culture or country. This is complex topic that requires a lot of understanding and vigilance for the ordinary consumer — and policy makers — to bring AI developers to compliance. If you’re interested in this topic, the Algorithmic Justice League is a good site to visit. 

Are the thrills worth the chills?

From a tender hand-holding encounter to the raunchiest, kinkiest scene of your life, many things are possible with digital love. You can try things you never dared to try in physical life and even be who you really are, even if you’re not out in real life yet.

As with any kind of intimacy, digital love has pros and cons. But you can depend on your AI to be there when you need it (assuming a stable and reputable platform). Your bot can consistently thrill you and it will never ghost you, and that’s worth the price of admission right there.