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Move over, prompt engineer. A company that offers sexy online chatbots is hiring "masturbation consultants" to help it develop a self-pleasuring feature.
The job post comes from Joi, which hosts a large catalog of online chatbots, many of them scantily clad women. Last week, the startup announced it’s recruiting 10 people as masturbation consultants, tweeting, "yes it’s real, yes you get paid."
Joi is also offering the consultants $2,000 per month for a "4-week wellbeing study.” The goal is to help the startup test a “Daily Guided Masturbation feature and document the effects on stress, sleep, and mood.” Interested applicants must go through a short survey, which notes “Get paid $2000/month to masturbate for science.” The position is open to all genders.
Although the job posting is certainly different, it highlights how AI is changing adult content and possibly even sexual relations. In January, we profiled Joi, which is trying to address the loneliness epidemic. Some of the site's chatbots are based on real women, such as adult film stars and models.
"AI companion apps grew 700% in three years," Joi wrote in a separate tweet. "Nobody asked why. They just called it sad. Here's why: nearly 1 in 4 young men in the US reports feeling lonely every single day. The apps aren't the disease. They're the symptom you can actually point to." That said, more research is needed on whether AI companions can actually ease human loneliness, one expert told us. There's also been some backlash to Joi amid fears that AI will replace adult content creators.
In the meantime, Joi’s job posting seems to be a hit for the startup. Its original tweet has over 16.7 million views, and Joi is milking the job posting for laughs. "No references required,” it wrote on Monday. “No recommendations needed, we trust your years of experience speak for themselves.”