Adult film star Riley Reid isn’t afraid of artificial intelligence — so instead of allowing others to leverage her likeness without her consent, she’s getting in on the ground floor.
As recently launched independent media company 404 Media reports, Reid has cofounded a new company called Clona.ai that allows personalities like herself to create AI chatbot versions of themselves — and instead of shying away from sexting like other companies, the venture is leaning into it.
That makes it stand out against other competing platforms that have tended to forbid their customers from discussing taboo subjects like sex or pornography. So far, Reid and fellow adult performer Lena the Plug have signed up, and more are to follow on an invite basis, according to her interview with 404.
“The reality is, AI is coming, and if it’s not Clona, it’s somebody else,” Reid told the site, which charges $30 per month to exchange more than a few messages with her avatar. “When [other people] use deepfakes or whatever — if I’m not partnering up with it, then someone else is going to steal my likeness and do it without me.”
To create her virtual avatar, Clona.ai trained its Reid algorithm using her “YouTube videos, podcasts and interviews, or my X-rated scenes, to get some of my naughty bits as well, and everything on the sexy side, as well as the personal companion and intimate side.”
While making sure she wasn’t giving up every piece of personal data, Reid says she fleshed out her virtual self extensively, down to the names of her dogs.
Instead of relying on purely “sexy chat,” the adult performer told 404 that she’s also looking to serve her fans with “advice” and allow them to “just talk about their day.”
While it’s more willing to embrace adult subjects, Clone.ai is far from the first company to offer these kinds of services. Earlier this year, 23-year-old influencer Caryn Marjorie created a virtual version of herself with the help of AI firm Forever Voices and OpenAI’s GPT-4, which her fans could rent for $1 per minute.
Earlier this month, Facebook’s parent company also announced that it’s created over a dozen AI chatbots that are based on a variety of celebrities, including Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, YouTube creator James “MrBeast” Donaldson.
Most disturbing, though, are sites that don’t get consent from public figures before recreating them as chatbots, such as Janitor.ai or Chub.ai — both of which, 404 pointed out, are hosting chatbots of Reid that she had nothing to do with.
That sounds like the key idea behind Clona: allowing performers to create their own authorized chatbots that, unlike Meta, don’t view certain topics as verboten.
“I feel like we’re gonna be a huge part of AI adapting into our society, because porn is always like that,” Reid told 404. “It’s what it did with the internet.”
It also comes after years of adult performers being treated poorly by the tech world, from exploitative streaming sites that steal their content to altering their clips with deepfakes without their permission.
Instead of rejecting an AI future, in other words, Reid has chosen to embrace it.
“Everything, at some point, becomes obsolete to some extent, so that’s why we have to not fear it,” Reid told 404. “But see what we can do to be a part of it.”
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