You will no longer pay to enjoy someone’s body, but for the perfect illusion of a body that never existed. Sexual fantasies migrate to synthetic avatars, seductive chatbots and algorithmically generated porn stars, while real people disappear from the screen and, perhaps, even from desire. From algorithms that simulate emotional intimacy to deepfakes that raise accusations of abuse and identity theft, porn becomes the extreme laboratory of a broader transformation: that of an artificial intelligence that does not limit itself to entertaining, but redefines (also) the erotic imagination. A change that promises new markets and profits, but opens up ethical dilemmas and disturbing questions.
DIY porn is already a reality. Personalized images, videos and virtual partners can be created starting from a simple textual command: the user describes what he wants and the algorithm generates a tailor-made scene, character or interaction in a few seconds. Platforms powered by AI such as Lovescape.com, Candi.ai and Candy.ai, or Ouraidream.com, allow you to have immersive and personalized conversations with virtual girlfriends and anime characters (Japanese cartoons which when they become pornographic are called hentai) who “remember” those already had with the user, in a “relationship” that grows over time. For some of them, the sexual content is immediately evident, in others it is more nuanced and comes as a subcategory. For all of them, you pay, of course.
Today it is possible to generate highly realistic adult images and videos without using cameras, sets or human actors. Faces, bodies and voices are convincingly reproduced, resulting in artificial stars or simulations of real people. In some cases you pay for erotic experiences based exclusively on fantasy: scenes never filmed, bodies that never existed, relationships without reciprocity.
In this scenario, the pornographic industry is going through a radical transformation. The scenes are no longer shot, but generated via code. For producers and platforms, the economic advantages are evident: reduced costs, absence of logistical constraints and theoretically unlimited availability of interpreters. «We have entered an era of total transformation», confirms Italian porn celebrity Rocco Siffredi to Panorama. «After thirty years of activity, my historic distributors sold the company to invest exclusively in virtual models and performers. Today everyone is going in that direction. “Classic” porn, in fact, has long been dead and what exists today is hybrid and even difficult to define. I got back into the game in an extremely complex historical moment from many points of view”, continues Siffredi, “but also deeply intriguing. My experience is atypical and irrelevant, but it is indicative of a radical change that artificial intelligence is imposing on the entire industry.”
The use of this technology in the hardcore world is often justified as a form of harm reduction: less human exploitation, fewer exposed bodies. But the line between entertainment and simulated relationship is blurring. No more artists, but just an answer to the question: “What do you want?”. The use of the content thus changes: the experience is no longer passive, but interactive and personalized, capable of generating potentially unlimited eroticism.
From the menu you choose sex, age, body, setting. The desire is translated into parameters. Digital “companions” emerge capable of simulating conversation, attention and emotional intimacy. Sophisticated chatbots analyze the user’s tastes and fantasies, guide the experience and incentivize spending. Even flirting is automated: it is no longer necessary to learn how to seduce, the algorithm does it. The real revolution may not be the replacement of actors with synthetic images, but the overcoming of the very concept of content. The market is moving from video to relationships: chatbots capable of remembering conversations, adapting to the user’s tastes and thus keeping them company. One of the most evident expressions of this change is the phenomenon of “AI waifus”, virtual girlfriends inspired by anime aesthetics.
An instruction market is also emerging around this new generative pornography. We no longer sell just the content, but the recipe itself to make it. Several Chinese online platforms provide tutorials and prompts that teach you how to use AI models to create custom pornographic videos and bypass the platforms’ moderation systems. For just over a euro, users purchase sequences of commands that describe desired hairstyles, body shapes, movements and facial expressions. All directors.
The economic context explains the push. The global pornography industry is valued at approximately $15 billion per year. Pornhub receives over 3 billion monthly visits and OnlyFans generated $1.41 billion in net revenue in 2024, with 377 million users and 4.6 million creators. Porn increasingly works like social media: it captures attention, stimulates dopamine, creates the illusion of a real connection. The risk is particularly evident among adolescents and young adults: getting used to a totally customizable eroticism can alter expectations towards real relationships. When the other already exists in an ideal, predictable and controllable version, the real encounter becomes more fragile, more exposed to frustration and comparison.
The concept becomes extreme when we enter the world of anime: the idealization of desire sexualizes characters generated by the wildest imagination. Which can be created, or can be found ready and waiting on sites like Pornhub, Youporn, Xvideos, which have to chase the trend. The hentai category (hard “cartoons”), already appreciated, is now radically elaborated by AI and becomes the domain of extravagance: abnormal sexual organs, animal-like or demonic women, multi-endowed monsters. A bar that rises and flirts with the abomination, in case those who connect lack the imagination necessary to get excited and amazed.
«Porn has trained an entire generation of men to associate arousal with novelty, control and emotional distance. Artificial intelligence perfects this scheme.” This is said by Connor Beaton, founder of ManTalks, a platform that works on the development of men’s emotional and relational skills through podcasts, groups and workshops. «Men who grew up using porn to regulate stress, loneliness or shame find themselves faced with a version that adapts to their preferences and never says no. This is not sexuality, but a closed feedback loop designed to satisfy desire without challenge.” However, algorithms risk making it even more difficult to stop consuming pornography, transforming it into an increasingly personalized and accessible “digital drug”.
But perhaps the most important point according to Beaton is that sex on demand stops being a stimulus and becomes a substitute for relationships. “Addiction isn’t just about dopamine, it’s about relief. AI offers an immediate escape from rejection, insecurity and loneliness, without risk. It offers a frictionless pseudo-connection. The result is men who feel less rejected, but also less needed. AI can simulate attention, but it cannot offer mutual recognition.”
Porn based on these assumptions can seem like a “relationship supplement”: it satisfies immediately, but it doesn’t nourish intimacy. «It’s a perfect analogy. It’s junk food for intimacy,” Beaton observes. «It satisfies the moment, but starves the processes that make a real connection possible: harmony, negotiation, boundaries, reciprocity». According to Beaton, men are not just looking for sexual release, but to feel chosen and respected. «Generative models offer the illusion of trust and attraction without the cost of obtaining them through uncertainty, rejection and repair. AI rewards avoidance, not courage.” The risk is that, over time, expressing desire towards a machine becomes easier than building an authentic connection and tolerating the emotional complexity of the other. “Women too will soon have full relationships with chatbots powered by algorithms,” he concludes. «Technology can expand the human or silently replace it. We are at this crossroads.”
The dark side includes non-consensual synthetic pornography. The Grok case marked a turning point. Earlier this year the topic gained visibility when X users discovered that the chatbot from xAI, Elon Musk’s company, was generating sexual deepfakes of real people without consent, taking away control over their image and identity. Among the victims, celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Millie Bobby Brown, but also ordinary people and minors. According to the Center for Countering Digital Hate, it had produced around three million images in eleven days, of which 23,000 were attributable to children. The feature has been progressively limited and xAI has announced new restrictions. But the problem remains. In Italy, Diletta Leotta, Giorgia Meloni and Francesca Barra have denounced the spread of false sexual images generated with AI. The common feeling of the victims is of total violation.
The political response is starting to take shape. From 2 August, the transparency obligations established by the Ai Act, the European regulation on Artificial Intelligence, are applicable: chatbots and synthetic contents must be clearly identifiable and those who spread deepfakes are required to inform users of their artificial nature.
«The Grok case teaches that the problem is not AI, but the control of technology and design choices that must not harm human dignity», Mariarosaria Taddeo, professor of digital ethics at the Oxford Internet Institute, explains to Panorama. “Its potential is enormous, from creativity to applications in medicine, but without rules we risk missing a historic opportunity.”
In non-consensual pornographic deepfakes the violence is not physical, but identity-related. «Synthetic pornography separates sex from the body and links it to identity», concludes Taddeo. «It takes away control over oneself and makes the violation profound and infinite: the violence is renewed with each viewing. Consent, the pillar of personal dignity, becomes impossible.”
In the end the question always comes back to this: is man intelligent enough to use artificial intelligence well?
