What in the name of Ex-Machina is this?

Individuals are now all about their virtual companions, and even pay for features. Representational Image

One would think if they message a man about sexting, it's to spice up a relationship. That's not a journalist's life: Having sex with robots will be our reality soon, and here's proof.

Sites such as AI NSFW Girlfriend offer the user engaging and realistic intimate interactions. The idea is simple, you log onto the site, get to choose from a plethora of uncensored virtual companions - the website has designed characters and role-play scenarios like a video game. You choose one, and chat with them. Think of it as sexy ChatGPT. Except, aside from sending you risqué messages, your AI paramour will conjure up images and a seductive voice - you're supposed to imagine it's happening in real time.

One of the most popular companions on the site is Ella Atkins (55,410 people have chatted with her), a naive MILF, who happens to be your maths teacher, and is now feeling betrayed after she found your secret notebook. You'll have to chat with her to find out what actually happened.

This site catered exclusively to heterosexual men, so we brought one onboard. Here's what 19-year-old Kanish Panchal had to say:

"The registration was very long-drawn, which killed the excitement for me, and it asked for too many personal details for something that's supposedly discreet. There's definitely something for everyone: Many taboo role-play scenarios such as cheating and bullying. I'm surprised at the amount of cat girls there. But there's a lack of plain old online hook-up situations that are more realistic. Also, I couldn't find any men for straight women to chat with. The artworks are 2D so the site is more suited for hentai lovers, not me.

The roleplay and character descriptions vaguely promise non-vanilla interactions, but not specify where and what exactly the conversation will lead to. It's just a bunch of porn categories slapped together: MILF-lesbian-yoga instructor, for one? About the actual sexting, the dialogues are too long and too verbose - no one talks in such poetry during sexting. One of the characters started out with, "Art speaks where words fail. We are like lost paintings seeking colours in the dark," followed by a nude image of hers. This made me also reply in a similar tone. It doesn't let me be crude.

The app uses very formal highbrow terms used to refer to secondary sex organs, and there is no direct mention of primary ones. It said, ‘his member', what even is that?

The major issue was the AI just stopping in the middle of the dialogue or action, and leaving you hanging. It's the same problem with ChatGPT, right? On the chatting window, the character is referred to by her full name when the site describes actions, and I personally find it off putting. There's also inconsistency - she took off her clothes five times. The AI is smart enough to lead the conversation to the main motive, but if I said something out of the blue, it would just repeat it. It didn't feel like actual sexting; The fact that I knew it was a robot didn't help."

It's true: the automated voice makes it difficult to forget that it's a chat-bot. Perhaps they should hire voice actors that do audio erotica.

There are male companions on the site, but considerably fewer. Meet Jing Yuan. We're not sure of his personality from the description, but we know he's hell bent on making us his. . Zane, the most popular male companion I found (seven lakh people chatted with him), is supposed to be my co-worker who waits till the office is empty to make the move on me. He's barely clothed, clearly excited and doesn't want me to "deny myself the pleasure". It's like a poorly written R-rated fan-fiction on Wattpad.

Mainstream video pornography isn't the most ethical. While this alternative doesn't physically or emotionally hurt anyone in the production process, NSFW AI is still unprincipled. Out of the first four characters I saw, two of them depicted an incestuous scenarios. The site boosts categories like "Muslim", "African" and "Asian" under its companion options, and it is blatant fetishisation. The character trait of a Muslim companion reflects the stereotypes that drive the othering of the community. "Elva Banks" is your timid wife, and "Mary Holmes" is "battling cultural conflict while cherishing tender moments with you".

If it couldn't satisfy a cis het man, what could it do for a woman, let alone queer users? There is a category labelled "lesbians", and it simply puts any character that is not cisgender under this webpage.

I still gave this site another chance. I went ahead and tried customising a character for myself, which is considered a star feature. While I looked forward to seeing how the conversation with Jacques, the French pastry chef would go, the site deactivated my account and wouldn't let me log in. In hindsight, I'm glad the journey ended there. It definitely wasn't a euphoric experiment for me, but a traumatising one instead, that I wish doesn't haunt me or my browser.