The world’s first AI lover pavilion has opened, charging 249 euros per night. Surprisingly, the most frequent visitors are married men

For many people, dating is just two words: troublesome.

You have to guess the other person’s thoughts, remember anniversaries, endure inexplicable emotions, and always be on guard against digging up old accounts. Maybe we still have to face the troubles of infidelity, cold war, and breakup. Many young people don’t want to talk about it now, they just can’t talk about it anymore.

Human beings are ultimately emotional animals, and they also want someone to comfort them when they are lonely.

So someone came up with a solution – there is a store called Cybrothel in Berlin, which is the world’s first AI intimate experience hall, also known as the “AI brothel”, specializing in the business of AI silicone dolls. You go in and choose a doll you like, she can call out your name and chat with you. You can also wear VR glasses and do some indescribable things ……

Who are the regular customers of this AI brothel? Why is this store located in Europe but closely related to Chinese factories?

1、 There is no real person in Cybrothel, but there is a ‘perfect’ lover
The story of this store begins in 2020.

Founder Philip Fussenger initially did not work in the adult industry, but was an Austrian director. He and a few artist friends initially wanted to conduct an art experiment to see if humans and machines could have intimate relationships. As I was doing it, I discovered that some people were willing to spend money on it, so I decided to transform it into a serious business.

Cybrothel is in a private residence in the Friedrichshain district of Berlin, without a sign or front desk, and looks no different from a regular apartment from the outside. Because there is no live streaming service, there is no need for traditional pornography industry licenses. This model is causing headaches for local regulatory authorities. You can call it a pornographic venue, but there are not even any living people inside; You say it’s not, it does provide an intimate experience. Being stuck in the cracks of the law, yet living comfortably.

There are a lot of simulated dolls to choose from in the museum. The basic package costs 179 euros per hour, while the overnight package starts at 249 euros and includes services such as VR glasses and a body tracker.

This price is considered above average in Berlin, slightly cheaper than real person services, but not everyone is willing to spend it. However, Cybrothel’s business is still good, especially on weekends and holidays, where advance appointments are often required.

So, how do we play?

Firstly, self-service throughout the process, scanning the QR code on your phone to handle everything. After selecting the package, the staff can remotely switch settings using a computer outside, without having to face anyone from start to finish. This design is largely aimed at protecting privacy, as people who come to such places do not want to be recognized.

The private rooms in the store are equipped with toilets, bathrooms, and home theaters, as well as beds, chairs, and silicone dolls.

The decoration has a futuristic and cyberpunk feel. Each room is soundproof and does not disturb each other.

The silicone skin of these dolls is very soft, rubber fingers can move, and the chest and hips are very sturdy. You can choose characters of various body types, genders, and personalities. Each character has a carefully crafted personalized name, personality, voice, and background story.

For example, from the blue skinned alien scientist Lyra Tessoni, to the Japanese mechanical queen Kokeshi 2.0 covered in rivets, to the German noblewoman Oksana. Kokeshi’s slogan is “My taste is like peaches, I smell like summer rain”, and the setting is “Born as a Galactic Happy Doll with a heart of gold”. Some characters also seem very popular: Mrs. Schmidt, a biology teacher, Paris, a rebellious sports sweetheart, and Valentina, a language genius from a poor neighborhood in South America.

So where does AI manifest itself? There are mainly three levels.

Firstly, it is AI driven role-playing and memory functions. Users can communicate with AI before booking, customize the doll’s personality, interests, and even opening remarks. This underlying AI system determines the character personality and dialogue logic of the doll – it can remember your name and what you said last time.

However, the real-time voice of chatting with users is not synthesized by AI. Cybrothel provides live voice actors for each doll in the background, and she always communicates according to the user’s pre-set character direction and chat memory. When the user finishes speaking, the doll’s response sound will be played through certain objects, such as the speaker on a pearl necklace.

Fussenger refers to this model as “simulated AI”. He found that live voice acting can provide the highest level of interactive experience, and the key to success is to inject the “digital soul” into the silicone body, allowing Cybrothel to provide “thoughtful” companionship and form emotional connections that can be “talked about”.

Secondly, it is the dynamic interaction brought by VR and lumbar sensors. The silicone doll itself won’t move, but when you put on VR glasses, a 1:1 3D virtual image will appear in front of you.

At the same time, you will wear a sensor on your waist, and the system can capture your motion data, allowing the virtual image to make corresponding interactive feedback.

That is to say, if you move the virtual character, it will cooperate with you. At the same time, you can also interact with physical silicone dolls. The dual stimulation of “physical+virtual”, with two sets of senses working simultaneously, coupled with AI driven chat and memory functions, has a stronger effect than using silicone dolls alone or watching VR alone.

Thirdly, it involves simulating touch and body temperature. The doll’s skin is equipped with sensors that can simulate a human body temperature close to 37 ° C when touched, instead of cold silicone. There will be corresponding sound feedback when touched. Fushen Aige is still developing a new generation of products, with the goal of enabling dolls to respond more in real-time to touch, such as blushing and shortness of breath.

It can be said that Cybrothel is essentially an offline experience store that combines AI big models, VR interaction, and silicone dolls. The biggest difference between it and traditional adult services is that there are no real people or moral burdens, and there are no messy struggles. For many people, this’ zero social cost ‘experience itself is the biggest selling point.

2、 What exactly is the person walking into Cybrothel looking for?
Many people think that people who go to Cybrothel are there to address their sexual needs. That’s true, but in reality, the situation is much more complex than imagined.

The first type of person is the mainstream population seeking emotional support.

Cybrothel’s main customers are mostly around 30 years old. Why this group of people? Because the passion in a stable relationship slowly fades away, daily friction begins to accumulate, but one does not want to get into the trouble of real infidelity. The AI silicone doll is stuck in the middle: it’s not a real person, so it’s not considered a betrayal; But it can also meet the needs, so it is effective.

A bank manager who has been to Cybrothel said, ‘There’s no need to pretend to talk to AI, and we can still talk about quantum physics. In my wife’s eyes, this is just a waste of time.’. ”What he wants is not real sex, but a spiritual relationship.

There are also couples who come together, and Fussenger refers to these customers as the “lightweight version of a threesome”. These people usually have a good emotional foundation and just want to find something fresh. After all, in traditional sexual service settings, couples still feel a bit awkward together. But in Cybrothel, there is no contact throughout the entire process, and no one has to look at anyone’s eyes.

There is another group that is easily overlooked: the elderly. Many elderly people come here to seek companionship and fight against loneliness. For them, sex is no longer their main demand, as long as someone can speak up. Although AI dolls cannot accompany walking or eating, they can at least chat.

The second type of person comes to vent their violent impulses.

In 2022, Cybrothel sued a customer. The customer completely lost control and used tools such as a knife to cut open a silicone doll completely.

British writer Laura Bates went undercover in Cybrothel once. She said in the podcast that she deliberately made an extreme request – asking the customer service to tear up the doll’s clothes in advance, just to see if they would comply, but the other party followed without saying a word.

Later, she recalled in her own book that the doll named Kokeshi’s clothes were torn apart and her body parts were missing, creating a shocking scene. She stated that Cybrothel can make any request, from mild abuse to simulating extreme violence, and the other party will comply.

This is not an isolated case. Activist Caitlin Roper pointed out that on male forums, there are often a lot of violent photos: dolls tied up in a large font hanging on the bed, inserted by foreign objects, and in abusive positions. Some men expressed their hope that their dolls could “struggle”, while others felt disappointed because they couldn’t leave bruises on their dolls. These discussions may not directly come from Cybrothel’s customers, but the issues revealed are common.

The third type of person is purely out of curiosity.

For example, technology bloggers come to shoot materials, and international students act as curiosity check ins. Anna Iovine, the female author of VICE, is a typical example. She flew from London to Cybrothel in Berlin specifically to see what was going on. The doll she chose is called Techno Babe, with a pair of glass like blue eyes.

She later described it this way: ‘After being with her at 1am, I completely lost my anchor point to the real world.’ This feeling of losing anchor is exactly what Cybrothel wants to create – to temporarily detach users from all the troubles of the real world.

These people may not repurchase, but every one of their shares is helping Cybrothel do free dissemination. Fussenger himself also said that everyone wants to see what this is really a novelty, and the influx of media and curiosity seekers has actually helped them push their business to the public. To some extent, half of Cybrothel’s success can be attributed to its topicality.

Ultimately, for those who come to Cybrothel, sexual desire is only the surface level reason. At a deeper level, there are various complex psychological motivations – some people need love, some people need control, and some people need novelty.

3、 The Chinese factory hidden behind Cybrothel
Outside of Cybrothel’s people and events, there is an unavoidable topic: who actually made these silicone dolls?

The answer may surprise many people: almost all of them come from a factory in Zhongshan, Guangdong called Jin San Play Mei.

The predecessor of this factory was to make clothing models and props, and around 2010 it transformed into making adult dolls. After fifteen years of work, we have become the world’s largest producer of silicone dolls. According to industry estimates, for every 10 silicone dolls exported from China, 4 of them come from Jinsanwanmei, and 90% of orders are sold to countries such as the United States, Germany, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Russia.

The MetaBox series, which will be launched at the end of 2024, is the one that truly made Jin San’s beauty go viral. They stuffed a smart box into the doll and integrated open source models such as ChatGPT and Llama, turning the silicone doll from a unresponsive prop into a more “humanized” companion – it can remember the user’s conversation for three months, call your name, and remember what you complained about last time. The doll also preset eight different personalities, such as gentleness, liveliness, and intellectuality, which users can switch at any time – from sister next door to the bitter tongue roast campaign, which can be done with one click.

After technological breakthroughs, the business model also changed accordingly. The hardware price of MetaBox ranges from $1500 to $2000, but the AI interactive features require an additional subscription fee of $100 to $200 per year. Not renewing? The doll will revert back to regular silicone, and all memories will be reset to zero.

In fact, Jin San Play Mei is not fighting alone, it is backed by the entire Chinese industrial chain.

The bottom layer is the material revolution. The skin texture made of TPE polymer material can achieve extremely high realism. The texture of the doll has changed from “fake at first glance” to “just like a real person”, with elasticity and even a textured texture on the skin. This material is also widely used in the medical field, and later borrowed from the adult products industry. After several rounds of iteration, the current effect has been achieved. At present, China has formed a large-scale production capacity in the field of TPE polymer materials.

Up there is a high degree of restoration ability. Relying on China’s mature mold manufacturing and handicraft industry chain, many Chinese manufacturers are already able to provide dozens of body modules and hundreds of face shape choices, accurately covering global aesthetic differences such as Europe, America, Latin America, and Asia, even deliberately making small bellies, goosebumps, and sunspots. Jin San’s 3D curved face can blink and smile, and the visual effect of the skin under different lighting conditions is very close to that of a real person.

The next layer is cluster efficiency. China accounts for 70% of the global silicone doll production capacity, forming a complete supply chain from material research and development to AI chips. Chemical raw materials in the Yangtze River Delta, electronic components in the Pearl River Delta, and high efficiency of local assembly All can be completed in one stop in China, with significant advantages in delivery speed and supply chain response efficiency on a global scale.

Colleagues from Europe, America, and Japan are not as comfortable. They need to purchase a set of identical parts, with materials possibly sourced from Southeast Asia, chips ordered from the United States, and sensors transferred from Europe. Just cross-border logistics and communication coordination would take a lot of time.

Chinese manufacturers can not only make the same dolls faster, but also cheaper, which is the confidence of self-sufficiency in the entire chain from materials to chips.

The top layer is the price. In the past, high-end dolls in Japan were sold for 80000 to 100000 yuan, which ordinary people couldn’t afford. After entering the market, domestic manufacturers directly broke through this price system, not only pushing it down to the thousand dollar level, but also far lower than Japanese products, with similar or even stronger performance. There is a well-established sex doll factory in Japan called Dongfang Industrial, which has been in business for 47 years and will close directly in 2024. Many people believe that the cost-effectiveness advantage of Chinese manufacturers has made it increasingly difficult for foreign established manufacturers to resist.

After this combination punch, Cybrothel, an overseas venue, also clearly wants to cooperate with Chinese suppliers to develop more durable models.

The entire industry is also accelerating. According to QYResearch research, the global AI silicone doll market is expected to reach approximately 2.32 billion yuan by 2024, and is projected to approach 7.05 billion yuan by 2031, with a compound annual growth rate of 17.3%. In this vast market that is being reshaped by technology, the control of the manufacturing end has quietly shifted to the hands of China.

At the end of the day, AI lovers are not ferocious beasts, but they are also not as simple as “buying a perfect relationship for just over 200 euros”. It is a mirror that reflects the loneliness of contemporary people, as well as a heart wrenching question: a 249 euro one night AI silicone doll may become a “perfect lover”, but when you get used to this “perfection”, are you still willing to endure the imperfections of real people?

The answer to this question may be more difficult to face than any technology.