The Future of Sex Work
EastCoaster
I strongly prefer women of color. Every color.
Here is a link to a podcast of a radio show that originated from my local public radio station today over the noon hour (actual length: 48 minutes). I thought the topic may be of interest to some of you. Note: I have no connection to the show and am not in any way responsible for the content.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM…
Posted Description:
"Working from home looks a little different for sex workers. With most strip clubs closed and dancers excluded from larger pots of money in the coronavirus relief package, the sex trade has largely gone online. From strippers to erotic masseuses to full service workers, virtual sex work required innovation."
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM…
Posted Description:
"Working from home looks a little different for sex workers. With most strip clubs closed and dancers excluded from larger pots of money in the coronavirus relief package, the sex trade has largely gone online. From strippers to erotic masseuses to full service workers, virtual sex work required innovation."
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22 comments
If you're actually in DC I can understand why you'd think that way. DC clubs have been trash in the lapdance department for a while now. Like decades. I don't count Ebony Inn because there's a whole lot of other things I don't like about it even if the mileage is good for the area.
Often times there is more than one variable at work - IMO once Covid is not as big an issue, I envision SCing going back to the way it was w/ perhaps some exceptions (clubs closing due to financial hardship, etc).
To me the #1 headwind for SCs has always been LE (as can been seen at what's happened in ATL recently, and other areas) - two *possible* issues going forward:
1) cities taking advantage of Covid to put further restrictions on SCs even once the Covid threat has passed; in an attempt to get rid of SCs as many cities have done over the last 2 decades
2) there's actually a bit of a push by the left to legalize sex-work - I think this may actually affect SCs negatively - I think SCs to a large-extent benefit from sex-work being illegal and thus harder to come by - in other countries where sex-work is legal, it seems SCs can't compete - something similar may happen here in the U.S, if sex-work is legalized
I know it sounds a lot like glorified blow up sex dolls, but there are companies working on sex robots with limited AI;Machine Learning capabilities to make them more human like.
At what point will they become good enough to put pressure on sex workers?
Granted, given some of the ads I’ve seen on my social media feed, I feel like it can maybe be do-able. But probably a long way to go. 😝
I have been doing some work recemtly in computational linguistics. There have been some amazing advances in the field since 2018. But as of right now, the most sophisticated language models ( a key component of any Natural Language Understanding system require massive computing power)
But your question wasn’t price, but what is possible.
In AI, there is something called the TuringTest. Basically an AI system is considered capable of passing the Turing Test if a human who doesn’t know whether they are talking to a machine or a human is unable to tell the difference between a machine and a human.
As of right now, nothing has passed the Turing Test. But there are systems that are getting pretty damn close.
One such language model is GPT 3. GPT 3 was developed by a company called OpenAI and just last week to Microsoft.
GPT 3 is a generative model - it writes text on its own. If you looked at the things it writes, it is more coherent than a lot of people on this forum.
Once you have text, hooking it up to a Generative Adversarial Network that creates a synthetic, but sexy female voice is child’s play.
Of course you need an attractive body and various sensors and mechanical devices in appropriately soft packaging so it doesn’t feel like you are fucking a bucket of bolts.
But it is doable (no pun intended ) and will be reality sooner than most people think.
But the ability for a robot to react in an encouraging way exists today. And soft, wet and warm is also possible.
At some point in time, the technology will be good enough that a certain percentage of the population will consider alternatives.
I only heard the second half of the podcast earlier today (I will listen to the whole thing tomorrow), but all the speakers I heard were women who worked in the trade -- real strippers -- and liked the work. It was a pretty interesting discussion.
🤔
Speaking of bots, the body motions of these stripper bits is very interesting. Obviously they can be made more attractive. I think part of the goal is to allow people watching to clearly realize that these are robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X24EsAK…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmNaLtC6…