I personally love a good tale about hubris. The main one that comes to mind is old Icarus flying way too close to the sun after knowing full well he made his wings out of wax.

The important points of the story are:

• Ingenuity: using the resources at his disposal within captivity to fashion an object for his liberation
• Success: the object possessed the ability to suspend human limitation and produce a desired effect—in this case, flight
• Consequences: identifying potential risks and choosing to ignore them due to the feeling of invincibility. This left Icarus more vulnerable than ever, and thus came his preventable demise

When it comes to AI and sex work, I find myself holding this myth in one hand and my lived experience in the other.

First, let me name where I stand: AI is a necessary evolution of human interaction with technology. The question has never been whether we would integrate technology with desire, but how well we would do it. This drive to merge the two is also a direct result of humans moving away from the symbiocene—where we think of how we can be of service to the universe around us and how it is in service to us—into the Anthropocene, where we as human beings look at the world around us in terms of how it can serve us alone, thereby not stewarding care about how we are destroying it.

The Wings

AI allows sex workers to take our work to new proportions. We now have the capacity to create virtual gaming environments where sex adapts to your needs. The capacity to embody completely artificially generated bodies that suit a client's desires. And in my case—the capacity to have an editorial companion that advances my writing while still maintaining my writing style and tone.

I find major value in AI because it means accessibility. Consider the person who may be completely avoidant of touch, finally able to access sexual satisfaction within virtual reality without shame or discomfort. Or the person who may not have access to the harsh beauty standards society upholds, able to create a version of themselves they feel confident with—one that still maintains the sensuality of their true personality.

The Wax

However, what I do not appreciate about AI are the major environmental disparities it has on ecosystems. Twenty-three cubic kilometers (over 6 trillion gallons) of water are wasted annually, set to more than double by 2050. A single large data center can consume up to 5 million gallons per day. These are not abstract numbers—they are the hidden cost of innovation.

Furthermore, I think the ethical dilemma of using AI in sex work is what creates the gross margin in deficit of benefit. When AI generates an avatar for a sex worker to use in an image that is completely opposite of the worker in race, class, age, etc.—it can become very icky very fast. We have to ask hard questions: How are we profiting off of pedophile culture? Racism? Misogyny? Poverty porn? And so much more.

An article in Virginia Tech Engineer titled "The Good, the Bad, the Scary" notes that:

More generally, today's AI systems influence human decision making at multiple levels: from viewing habits to purchasing decisions, from political opinions to social values. Artificial intelligence—in its current form—is largely unregulated and unfettered.

The Sun

I find that a technology like AI allows us to fly as close to the sun as we'd like, and potentially makes us impervious to its burns by use of an AI-created shield. But does this imperviousness open up other potential threats that are unknown? And is this unknown threat worth uncovering?

The Icarus myth doesn't end with the melting of wax. It ends with . It ends with the question of whether flight was worth the risk at all. We are building our wings in real time, and it’s up to us to respect the sun in all of its power, lest we be consumed.