A masturbation consultant for an AI companion company tells all

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.

SEE ALSO: Majority of Gen Z would marry an AI, survey says 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.