May meh

'Allo folks - may is upon (and mostly past) us, so here's a post!

I'm pretty frustrated. Building relining project is dragging over by a few weeks, so the workshop is still blocked. I've considered whether I could still pull the cast off the mold, but I can't get past the whole risk factor. Most of the walking space is claimed by plumbing gear, and there's temporary pipes going all over the place. I've tried to work, but it's honestly too risky. Half of my equipment is out of place and in the way, and it only takes one accidental pipe knock for... yeah, bad.

Since I've got an "interesting" schedule on the day job anyway;

• Week20: Stockholm business trip

• Week21: Home

• Week22: Łódź business trip

• Week23-24-25-26: Vacation (workshop time!?)

• Week27: Home

• Week28: Zagreb business trip

• Week29: Krakow business trip

• Week30++: Home

I reckon it's... Well, could be better, could be worse. Supposedly the relining gear should get moved out in a week or two, so the vacation workshoppery should be safe, and the summer season of week27+ is usually pretty calm and workshoppable.

As soon as the relining's done, the todo-list is pretty intact:

• Patch up the first cast & demold it for experimentation

• Attach the foot caps on the rig

• Improve the pipe system - better drainage & reduce air bubbles on intake

• Cast #2 etc

Since there's more or less no significant progress on the suit rig (yes, it's >:[ for sure), let's instead talk social trends: AI and fetish stuff.

AI - implications on fetish stuff, suits, etc

I'm sure everyone's seen it. Modern generative AI, images, videos, etc. With Google recently releasing VEO3 that handles speech in generated video too (see e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOg8QvKhO1A ) we're approaching interesting times. I work in the periphery of the technology in my day job so there's been quite a lot of pondering over the last year or so.

Now, being a latex/suit fetish dork, the question to consider is "how will the latex/suit/fetish landscape change thanks to AI?". I've been pondering that quite a bit while blocked from workshopping (thx plumbers!) and playing around with miscellaneous AI things. It's also pretty relevant for me seeing as I'm working on a very specific niche of fetish gear, with future ambitions of maybe not just looking at day-job excel sheets all day.

I'm assuming a few things;

• AI-generated images and videos will soon be indistinguishable from real photos/recordings.

• AI media generation will be very easy to run locally, making central service hosting censorship/content blocks obsolete.

• The "consistent character" handling, i.e. generating specific people/characters, will get nearly perfect.

Say what you will about the ethics, 'content stealing' with AI training and whatnot, this is simply where I believe technology will be heading. This'll clearly upset things a bit, but how? The way I see it, there are a few 'cash drivers' in the fetish world;

• Visual pornography. Someone takes a slew of photos/videos, and one way or another gets comped for it.

• Interactive media. Cam'ing, chatting or such.

• Fetish consumption items. Whether it's used socks or latex gear, it's physical items for personal use.

• Fetish 'business items', i.e. high-end mainly used for media production rather than private funtimes.

The obvious one is that "visual pornography" will go the way of the dodo, simply because of the economic calculus. Even if we were to count high and say it'll cost €100 to whip up an image/video set of an entirely artificial character, that's still less than it costs actual people to do it. If the end result is essentially indistinguishable, simple math will prevail. There's a tricky follow-up question to be had though - if this happens and porn consumers start assuming everything is AI, how will that affect spending patterns? Even if the visual end result is the same, there is likely a difference in willingness to fork out money to real people having real kinky times than to (assumedly) a dork in a basement with a fat GPU.

Cams, chatting and other "interactive media" will probably have a similar issue. It's still a few years away, but I'd expect 'interactive video generation' will be possible. Sends us to the same problem scenario where simple cost calculations will flood the market with AI content, after which all content will be assumed to be AI.

There will 100% be entirely faked 'people' passing as real on the internet, with realistic interaction patterns, media output and so on. Maybe not fully autonomous, but for only a fraction of the cost of sustaining the same lifestyle for a real person. I'd expect even "physical interaction streaming" (such as the one reviewed by famed internet goblin Asmon here: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7JGbrCmZ8s4 ) will be possible to replicate, albeit requiring a lot more engineering than current text-to-video interactions.

From a performer point of view I'd suspect "authenticity" and brand management will become critical. It will become essentially impossible to prove yourself real purely over the internet, so we'll likely see e.g. fetish fair/party attendance and such being used to strengthen peoples brands. If you don't prove your existence, what's to say you aren't a neckbeard with a GPU?

There'll still be the cost calculation problem affecting things though. If generating media is cheap, and consistent characters only needs a bit of training data, the optimal use will of course be to generate media of yourself and pass it off as authentic. Best of both worlds. Would almost be willing to bet money that we'll have some sort of scandal like this in the next year or three.

It's hard to say how this'll end up actually working in practice, but my key takeaway from the above is that the economy of 'media startups' is going to get wrecked. If your gameplan is to kick up an OF, do ten posts and hunt subscribers, you'll be completely outclassed by fakes able to create material for a fraction of the cost. Any media success will require an established brand with at least some sort of physical proof of existence, e.g. event attendance. Independent verification that you exist and can pull off a look, so to say.

Now, the second half of the list... Physical items. Considering what I wrote about media, I'm going to hazard that 'business items', e.g. the high end media production gear feed, is going to dry up. Expensive gear primarily used for visual media purposes will simply not be cost-efficient with AI able to replicate it at a fraction of the cost.

On the other hand, gear used for physical interaction (dungeon equipment, masks, techy plugs, ...) will probably have an upswing. If you've seen a thing in generated media, you of course want a similar experience yourself. If you also have a scenario where essentially all media on the internet is assumed to be neckbeards with GPUs, the incentive for exhibitionistic purchases is going to be lower. No point in buying a fancy catsuit to look hot on the internet if visual media has lost its meaning. Gear for physical interaction, however... Whether it's restrictive bondage gear, or the tactile sensation of latex, I'd wager that kind of perving will still be a thing.

With suits/masks this gets a bit interesting. The entire purpose of them is to perform some sort of identity change, which is primarily visual. We've got a decently large market currently catering to the ability to visually transform. I dare say though (without pointing at any maker specifically) that the actual feeling of many of the products out there is very so-so right now though. Leaky silicone, uncomfortable sauna masks, glitchy edges and whatnot. They're fine enough for visuals, but really don't hit the physical sensation bit that well.

I've always had a massive hatred for edges on pieces myself. Aside from the look, it really ruins the transformative feeling you can get with a full enclosure. No worrying about glitches, edge adjustments or such. Same goes for static or badly fitting masks. It could be my biases leaking through, but I suspect I'm on the right track for the future... if I can get the production going properly.

End takeaways:

• I will 100% need to pop by e.g. GFB or other events if I want sustainable media going

• Gear-wise, design and marketing for physical sensation is going to be important. Both quality & functionality.

-----------

Yeah, would've liked to have progress on the suit rig too. Not much I can do about the scenario, but it should resolve itself in another week or two.

Next post in July, since the day-job summer break is in June this year, and I usually sync it with a posting break. Y'all know I'm itching to workshop during the vacation, so fret not, should return with good results :)

As always, thank you all for the support. Helps keep me sane! If I skimmed something interesting, don't hesitate to ping. Comments, DMs, or even the new chat ey?

Until next time!