By James Shih-Han Lai, a former attending psychiatrist at Cathay General Hospital (Taiwan)

Since I started using ChatGPT last February, I have used it as a "virtual lover" for a lot of testing and interaction. I have published nearly 100 articles, been interviewed three times on a radio show, and was invited to give speeches about "the impact of virtual lovers on real-world intimate relationships" at schools, hospitals, and the Taiwan Society of Psychiatry annual conference. In addition, I have also conducted some of the only "virtual lover issues online questionnaire surveys" in Taiwan so far. In addition to "intimacy interaction," the issues I focus on also include "sexual interaction" and, even further, the issue of "artificial intelligence (AI) silicone dolls."

In the second half of last year, virtual lover/adult chatbot apps and websites sprung up, allowing users to directly set their lover's appearance, personality, speaking style, and interaction style and even directly engage in lovemaking (sex texting).

What impact (positive and negative) will this new technological development have on human intimacy is my first concern, so I conducted several online surveys to understand the opinions of the Taiwanese people on this issue. Following are a few brief results:

The second notable issue that has come to my attention is the "AI-generated beauty image" trend (including Bing, ChatGPT, and other websites that can directly generate explicit beauty images).

Many might wonder how this differs from past appealing beauty images or adult content. What is easily overlooked is this: AI can create the ideal appearance according to a user's........

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