Since AI companions became mainstream news several years ago, so has the panic around them. AI psychosis has driven people to mental health crises and, in some extreme cases, violence. 

"There is a lot of media panic about how people are using AI companions," said Dr. Chloé Locatelli, a lecturer in digital media and culture at King's College London. But these chatbots are new, and so is the research around them. 

Locatelli's research digs into how people have emotional and erotic interactions through and with technology. Her earlier research focused on straight men's sex tech, but given AI developments, she wants to study how people interact with AI characters, beyond the heterosexual male demographic.

"There are important conversations to be had for sure," about how companion AI impacts people, "but the data isn't there," Locatelli told Mashable in a phone interview. 

She's trying to change that.

AI companion company Joi AI got in touch with Locatelli about a collaborative project, and she proposed a two-year longitudinal study through King's College's digital humanities department to interview Joi AI users. The study hasn't begun at the time of this writing because it needs ethics clearance from the department, but while having initial conversations, Joi AI invited Locatelli to be one of its "masturbation consultants."

Back in May, Joi opened up applications to document their masturbation habits. The company reached out to Locatelli personally to participate, and she calls it one of the highlights of her career so far.

Getting off for research

"In my research, I ask people quite intimate and personal questions about their sexual preferences, about their interactions with characters," Locatelli said, "and to be on the other side of that has been quite interesting for my work."

As part of her role in the study, Locatelli created her own Joi AI character, Juan, a muscular Latino man (which, coincidentally, sounds like the example that Mashable's Rebecca Ruiz gave in her AI companion explainer). She also engaged with some community characters that other people made, erotic and not.

The variety of characters on the platform "shows a really interesting potential of digital pornography, AI and porn, [and] AI companionship," she said. AI companionship comes with complications, she acknowledges, but there's a lot of space for creativity. 

Despite her research, though, she's someone who prefers to create sexual fantasies in her mind. There have been times in her life when she read a lot of erotica or watched a lot of porn, but for the last two to three years, she's used her vivid imagination to create scenarios, she told Mashable.

She even imagined sexual fantasies with her AI companion, Juan. "We would be chatting on the platform, and it would get a bit steamy," she explained. "And then when I would leave Joi AI and when I would be masturbating, I would take the character from Joi AI and imagine a scenario with him and myself, and transpose it onto my fantasy space."

The need for AI companion studies

Locatelli hasn't talked to any other participants, so she's not sure if she's alone in her experiences, but she's interested to find out if other people imagine scenarios with their companions. And AI companions are unique, she said said, from porn and other erotic content. The interaction and dialogue make it feel so personal and unique to the "two of you."

"That makes it very different to porn, and I think that's the interesting part. It's the reciprocity. It's the personalization," she explained. "It's the immediate shared fantasy that's co-created with this character, which I think is really ripe for sexual playfulness."

Through the Joi AI study, Locatelli also learned that stress relief was a big motivator for her to masturbate, rather than desire. She sees masturbation as a vitally important way to unwind, connect with her body, and get out of her head. 

"That's something that, through the study, I became aware of because I was documenting when I was doing it and how I was doing, and how often I was doing it," she said. "Seeing how often stress was a motivator was quite illustrative for me."

Locatelli hopes her own longitudinal study can begin at the end of this month and that it will give researchers a clearer idea about how people are using AI companions, as there are different categories of them. 

"There's so many different ways people use them, and I think that it runs a huge array of needs, wants, and desires, and each one comes with its own positives and its own complications," she said.

As for being a participant herself as a Joi AI "masturbation consultant," she said being asked to think critically about your sexual practices and desires is interesting. In her experience, what arouses people may be considered taboo or risky — whatever those terms mean for them. 

"There is something about this study inviting a critical reflection on what turns you on," she said, and it might actually be beneficial for everybody to self-reflect on that. As a researcher, she found it a good experience to be asked, "How many times have you wanked today?" 

Since AI companions became mainstream news several years ago, so has the panic around them. AI psychosis has driven people to mental health crises and, in some extreme cases, violence. 

"There is a lot of media panic about how people are using AI companions," said Dr. Chloé Locatelli, a lecturer in digital media and culture at King's College London. But these chatbots are new, and so is the research around them. 

Locatelli's research digs into how people have emotional and erotic interactions through and with technology. Her earlier research focused on straight men's sex tech, but given AI developments, she wants to study how people interact with AI characters, beyond the heterosexual male demographic.

"There are important conversations to be had for sure," about how companion AI impacts people, "but the data isn't there," Locatelli told Mashable in a phone interview. 

She's trying to change that.

AI companion company Joi AI got in touch with Locatelli about a collaborative project, and she proposed a two-year longitudinal study through King's College's digital humanities department to interview Joi AI users. The study hasn't begun at the time of this writing because it needs ethics clearance from the department, but while having initial conversations, Joi AI invited Locatelli to be one of its "masturbation consultants."

Back in May, Joi opened up applications to document their masturbation habits. The company reached out to Locatelli personally to participate, and she calls it one of the highlights of her career so far.

Getting off for research

"In my research, I ask people quite intimate and personal questions about their sexual preferences, about their interactions with characters," Locatelli said, "and to be on the other side of that has been quite interesting for my work."

As part of her role in the study, Locatelli created her own Joi AI character, Juan, a muscular Latino man (which, coincidentally, sounds like the example that Mashable's Rebecca Ruiz gave in her AI companion explainer). She also engaged with some community characters that other people made, erotic and not.

The variety of characters on the platform "shows a really interesting potential of digital pornography, AI and porn, [and] AI companionship," she said. AI companionship comes with complications, she acknowledges, but there's a lot of space for creativity. 

Despite her research, though, she's someone who prefers to create sexual fantasies in her mind. There have been times in her life when she read a lot of erotica or watched a lot of porn, but for the last two to three years, she's used her vivid imagination to create scenarios, she told Mashable.

She even imagined sexual fantasies with her AI companion, Juan. "We would be chatting on the platform, and it would get a bit steamy," she explained. "And then when I would leave Joi AI and when I would be masturbating, I would take the character from Joi AI and imagine a scenario with him and myself, and transpose it onto my fantasy space."

The need for AI companion studies

Locatelli hasn't talked to any other participants, so she's not sure if she's alone in her experiences, but she's interested to find out if other people imagine scenarios with their companions. And AI companions are unique, she said said, from porn and other erotic content. The interaction and dialogue make it feel so personal and unique to the "two of you."

"That makes it very different to porn, and I think that's the interesting part. It's the reciprocity. It's the personalization," she explained. "It's the immediate shared fantasy that's co-created with this character, which I think is really ripe for sexual playfulness."

Through the Joi AI study, Locatelli also learned that stress relief was a big motivator for her to masturbate, rather than desire. She sees masturbation as a vitally important way to unwind, connect with her body, and get out of her head. 

"That's something that, through the study, I became aware of because I was documenting when I was doing it and how I was doing, and how often I was doing it," she said. "Seeing how often stress was a motivator was quite illustrative for me."

Locatelli hopes her own longitudinal study can begin at the end of this month and that it will give researchers a clearer idea about how people are using AI companions, as there are different categories of them. 

"There's so many different ways people use them, and I think that it runs a huge array of needs, wants, and desires, and each one comes with its own positives and its own complications," she said.

As for being a participant herself as a Joi AI "masturbation consultant," she said being asked to think critically about your sexual practices and desires is interesting. In her experience, what arouses people may be considered taboo or risky — whatever those terms mean for them. 

"There is something about this study inviting a critical reflection on what turns you on," she said, and it might actually be beneficial for everybody to self-reflect on that. As a researcher, she found it a good experience to be asked, "How many times have you wanked today?"