One of the most persistent concerns in the AI age is robotics take our work. The degree to which this fear is formed remains to be seenbut we are seeing some level of displacement in certain fields. Even niche professions are in danger. For example, the chat world of OnlyFans has been disrupted.
What To be What do you say about OnlyFans chats? Earlier this year, WIRED published a fascinating investigation into the world of gig workers paid to impersonate the highest-earning OnlyFans creators in online chats with their fans. In the industry, they are called “chatterers.”
Much of the appeal of OnlyFans—or so I’m told—is that its creators seem to interact directly with their fans, exchanging messages and sometimes talking for hours. Essentially, relationship simulation is as important a factor in its success as stimulation.
Of course, a creator with thousands of DMs going on only has so many hours per day. To handle the deluge of love messages, it has become popular to outsource paid chats to real talent.
These were previously mainly contractors from the Philippines, Pakistan, India and other countries with significantly lower wage expectations than the US. However, more and more human conversations are being replaced by AI-generated surrogates.
Several different startups today sell access to these AI conversations and other general AI tools — and they say business is booming.
“A lot of creators have said there is a need,” said Kunal Anand, founder of an AI chat service startup OnlyFans called ChatPersona. “We built our own model using data obtained from many creator conversations.”
According to Anand, since launching last year, ChatPersona has about 6,000 customers, including individuals and agencies.
Anand said that ChatPersona does not technically violate OnlyFans’ terms of service because it requires humans in the loop to press “send” on the messages its AI chat engine generates. (It was previously reported that OnlyFans bans the use of AI chatbots even though it Current terms of service Don’t mention the AI conversations.)
OnlyFans did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
