‘Housewife' sex trend sparks craze among lonely men
The sex dolls have become creepily realistic - and China's robot factories are at the centre of the revolution.
WMDoll, one of China's leading sex doll makers, is expecting a 30 per cent leap in sales this year, as men unable to find partners refuse to stay celibate.
Part of the uptick in interest comes from the enhanced 'user experience' - which now makes use of the latest AI tech.
Founder and CEO Liu Jiangxia told South China Morning Post: 'It makes the dolls more responsive and interactive, which offers users a better experience.'
WMDoll, based in based in Zhongshan, a city in southern Guangdong province, implants its dolls with its cutting edge 'MetaBox' brains.
These boast an AI element which is connected to the cloud.
The dolls fire off signals to Large Language Models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, which process the incoming data.
Instructions bounce back to the dolls, telling them how to move and interact.
The next-gen dolls are built from synthetic flesh stretched over a metal skeleton, weighing roughly half the weight of real humans.
The skin is formed from silicone or a similar material to create a feel as realistic as possible.
Traditional sex dolls are limited to simple, mechanical responses.
WMDoll thinks their dolls' ability to be more expressive gives them the edge.
The company says it can make dolls with roughly a whopping eight different 'personalities' to choose from, which are able to continue a conversation that could have started a few days earlier.
WMDoll also gives its dolls an AI tool which works in pandering to its partner's ego, with the ability to ask questions about their so-called 'relationship' as well as how they're feeling.
Founder Jiangxia said: 'In the past, these dolls' primary function was to satisfy users' sexual needs.
'But as their physical features such as head and joint movements and skin became more realistic, our customers started to seek emotional companionship in the dolls.'
The company began to use AI in its dolls back in 2016, with the tech constantly improving due to open source AI.
The dolls are usually made with thermoplastic, which is heated to 37C - a human's body temperature - to be as realistic as possible, with developers saying the creations have body sensors that also make them realistic.
A fellow doll manufacturer, Shenzhen Atall Intelligent Robot Technology, said previously that most of its doll buyers are 40 to 50-year-old men from Europe and the US.
Users can order custom-made AI dolls, priced at roughly £2,000 each (A$4,200), with soft and elastic skin made from rubbery plastic.
According to the company, US customers prefer dolls with darker skin and large breasts, buttocks and genitalia.
While customers in China opt for Asian features.
China has been previously estimated to make roughly over 80 per cent of the world's sex toys, with more than a million employed in the country's booming $6.6 billion (A$9.9b) industry.
Chinese feminist Xiao Meili has said she believes that some men will always have outdated expectations of women - and 'sex housewife robots' could help with this.
She said: 'A lot of men want the same for women: sex, housework, childbirth and filial piety. They don't think of women as individuals.
'If every nerd buys a sex doll for himself, […] that would free a lot of women from these kind of men.'
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