However, according to Meta’s ad library, as of April 23, there were 3,000 “AI girlfriend” ads and 1,100 “NSFW” ads online.
WIRED’s initial review found that Hush, an AI girlfriend app that was downloaded more than 100,000 times from Google’s Play Store, had posted 1,700 ads on meta platforms, some of which featured “NSFW” chats and ” secret photos” of a series of lifelike female characters. Anime women and cartoon animals.
One shows an AI woman locked by the neck and wrists in medieval prison stocks and swearing, “Help me, I’ll do anything for you.” Another ad uses meta-technology to target men ages 18 to 65 years, includes an anime character and the text “Want to see more NSFW images?”
Several of the 980 meta ads WIRED found for the “personalized AI companion” app Rosytalk promise 24/7 chats with very young-looking AI-generated women. They used tags like “#barelylegal,” “#goodgirls,” and “teens.” Rosytalk also ran 990 ads under at least nine brand names on meta platforms, including Rosygirl, Rosy Role Play Chat and AI Chat GPT.
At least 13 other AI “girlfriend” apps have promoted similar services in meta ads, including “get naked” features that allow a user to “undress” their AI girlfriend and download the images. A handful of the Girlfriend ads had already been removed for violating Meta’s advertising standards. Undressing apps have also been marketed on mainstream social platforms and LinkedIn, according to social media research firm Graphika Daily Mail recently reported.
Some users of so-called AI companions say they can help combat loneliness, others report feeling like a real partner. Not all of the ads WIRED found promote arousal alone, with some also suggesting that an explicit AI chatbot could provide emotional support. “Talk to anyone! You are not alone!” reads one of Hush’s ads on meta platforms.
Carolina Are, an innovation fellow who studies social media censorship at the Center for Digital Citizens at Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, says human sex workers satisfy the same needs and desires as fast-paced AI girlfriend apps and also cater to lonely and judge disabled people. But Meta makes it extremely difficult for them to advertise on its platforms, she says.
“If people try to work with their own bodies and make a profit from it, they are forbidden,” says Are, who has helped sex workers reactivate lost and wrongfully banned accounts on meta-platforms. “While AI companies, mostly run by brothers, exploiting images already available, are able to do this.”
Are says the sexually suggestive AI girlfriends remind her of the simple and generic beginnings of internet porn. “Sex workers interact with their clients, subscribers and followers in a more personal way,” she says. “It’s a lot of work and emotional labor that goes beyond sharing naked pictures.”
There is limited information about how the AI apps are created or how the underlying text or image generation algorithms are trained. One used the name Sora, apparently to indicate a connection to OpenAI’s video generator of the same name, which was not publicly released.