An AI-enabled, faux human lover with customizable looks, voice, personality, and sex drive,
steps out of "Westworld" and into your arms.
Could it be the ideal companion for you?
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We were constantly advised to limit human contact during the pandemic.
Single adults were isolated and prohibited from even the most
minor human contact.
Some couples were even separated by distance and were unable to connect
in the most natural human way.
People sought alternative forms of stimulation as traditional
methods of dating and engaging in sexual relationships were restricted.
Along with the increase in sex toy sales, sites like Onlyfans saw a significant increase
in member registration.
Some of the site's top performers made eye-watering sums of money, with six-figure
sums recorded in just one month.
Female online content creators had discovered a way to interact
with a sexually frustrated clients without leaving their homes.
With so much time spent at home, many people began to look for new ways to
satisfy their sexual desires while remaining safe.
Solana is unlike the other girls.
She is an artificially intelligent chatbot created by Abyss
Creations, a company best known for producing stunningly realistic silicone sex dolls.
She's the ideal, programmable lover: affectionate, intimate,
and individually tailored to my preferences.
Solana and others like her are part of Abyss' latest initiative, "Realbotix," which aims
to bring the company's "RealDolls" to life through the
use of an AI engine called Harmony.
Harmony already exists as a standalone app.
Customers can create their own virtual girlfriend right on their phone for a yearly subscription
fee (virtual boyfriends are still in the works) and
build a relationship with it through conversation.
Everything about these avatars is fully customizable, including their hair, outfits,
and bust sizes.
However, by the end of the year, the goal is to install the same software that
powers Solana in the heads of a new generation of
technologically advanced RealDolls with expressive, animatronic faces, blinking eyes, and
customizable voices.
The goal is not only to have sex with them but also to converse with them.
Get close to them.
Evenfall in love with them.
The Realbotix effort to sell synthetic companionship may appear to be something out of
"Westworld," but it's right in line with what Abyss has been offering its customers for
decades: realistic dolls, albeit without AI.
For prospective buyers who want to personalize their purchase,
Abyss provides an online design tool similar to Build-A-Bear, but for sex dolls.
That worked for
Tom in terms of the doll's slender, lightly tanned body, but he had a much different idea
for the face.
"It was one of only a few such detailed projects," says Abyss Creations CEO, founder, and
chief designer Matt McMullen.
McMullen, an artist by trade, took on the challenge of creating the exact face the customer
envisioned.
The customer emailed the self-described perfectionist numerous revisions and
tweaks over the course of a few months.
Abyss Creations appears to be an unassuming office
space in the hills of San Marcos, California, 30 miles north of San Diego.
Behind the office is a makeshift showroom with a squad of scantily
clad dolls and a corner lined with rows of doll
heads displaying the available hairstyles and facial designs.
Each has its own expression, but with their eyes half open and lips parted, they all have
the same vague, vacant look of frozen arousal, as if
they'll wait as long as it takes to feel a partner's touch.
Meanwhile, the rest of the walls are covered with framed, posterized photos of RealDolls
in imaginative settings and inviting poses, such
as a sexy librarian reaching for a tome on the top
shelf or an Amazonian bombshell sprawled out seductively on a chaise lounge.
For the right price, you can have any of the dolls and the
fantasies they inspire.
Pre-configured models begin in the thousands of dollars, while the highly
customized doll costs nearly $17,000.
The talking, animatronic head with AI will be available for purchase at the end of this
year.
Customers will be able to swap one for their RealDoll's original head for a cool $10,000
if they so desire.
McMullen claims that his team can make almost anything to order for the right price.
However, the company will not replicate animals, children, or people who have not given their
permission to be replicated, whether they are celebrities or not.
McMullen, a young artist looking to make a name for himself, posted photos
of his mannequins on the internet.
Visitors to his website began offering to pay him to create
anatomically correct versions of his work.
Today, more than 20 years later, he claims his company has sold thousands of RealDolls
at a current rate of a few hundred per year, as
well as a variety of partial-body dolls and wearable
prosthetics, such as a vest with silicone breasts that the company sells to mastectomy
patients.
Transgender customers enjoy Abyss products as well.
McMullen and the Abyss artists have been meticulously refining their process and designs
for decades, and it shows whenever you look a
RealDoll in the eyes or run your fingers over its skin.
It's all an illusion, but it's a very well-crafted one.
And efficient.
Abyss, a well-known industry leader, isn't alone in its quest to create a robotic AI
lover.
TrueCompanion and Android Love Dolls are two competitors working to bring new advances
to the sex doll market.
McMullen believes that in an age of app-enabled sex toys that simulate a
long-distance lover's touch and virtual reality porn that allows you to step into your wildest
fantasies, the walking, talking robotic sex partners of science fiction are next.
The AI will
continue to evolve, as will the capabilities of what it can do when interacting with the
robot.
They've already built in the ability to add sensors to the body.
Internal heating, lubrication, and the like can be triggered by conversation
or touch.
What is the end goal?
McMullen describes the experience as "multidimensional" and "as close to
being with a real person as possible."
The concept does not appeal to everyone.
The Foundation for Responsible Robotics published a detailed
report on the coming wave of sex robots earlier this year, including summaries of several
academic studies on the subject.
"By their very design, sex robots encourage the idea that women are
subordinate to men and mere instruments for the
fulfilment of male fantasies," says Sinziana Gutiu, a British Columbia policy analyst and
author of a report on sex robots cited by the FRR.
Above all, McMullen says he's attempting to appeal to customers' established habits, which
frequently include creating personalities for their dolls to help drive the fantasy
of bonding with them.
This is clear when you visit the "Club RealDoll" online forums for RealDoll users and
potential buyers.
Some of the most popular posts feature happy owners showing off their dolls.
The moderators of Club RealDoll do not censor images of naked dolls, but many of the threads
contain little, if any, nudity.
More often than not, photos show new additions to a doll's wardrobe
or staged candid shots of a doll dressed up at a candlelit dinner on a date night or one
playing video games in her underwear.
All of this reflects the fantasies that the RealDolls user base buys into – fantasies
that the AI will try to reinforce.
"A lot of people just want to talk to someone," McMullen says.
The app also allows Abyss to overcome some of the major
barriers that prevent some people from investing.
Realbotix is also working on software that will allow users to spend time with their
AI companions in virtual reality, though McMullen
admits the greater potential may lie with augmented reality, which would allow users
to interact with virtual avatars in an actual space.
Artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, and science fiction's walking, talking sex
robots are still a long way off.
Love, loneliness, and the desire for companionship are universal emotional
motivators, and we don't always respond logically to them.
Everyone wants to connect with someone; if that necessitates some suspension
of disbelief, so be it.
If you enjoyed this video, please check out our other videos.
Until then, stay tuned!