I think it’ll be really hard to regulate this in any kind of meaningful way. This is much harder to regulate than drugs or alcohol.
Why do you think so? Even if open-source LLMs and other necessary AI models will develop so quickly that real-time interaction and image generation will be possible on desktops, and there will be open-source waifu projects, mobile is still controlled by app stores (Apple and Google Play) where age-based restrictions could be easily imposed. Jailbreaking/unlocking the phone (or installing an apk from Github), connecting it to a local server with AI models, and maintaining the server is so burdensome that I expect 90+% of potential users of easy-to-access AI partner apps would fall off.
This is not to mention that open-source projects developed by hardcore enthusiasts will probably cater for their specific edgy preferences and not appeal to a wide audience. E.g., an open-source project of anime waifus may optimise to trigger particular fetishes rather overall believability of the AI partner and the long-term appeal of the “relationship”. Open-source developers won’t be motivated to optimise the latter, unlike AI partner startups, because their lifetime customer value would directly depend on that.
Why do you think so? Even if open-source LLMs and other necessary AI models will develop so quickly that real-time interaction and image generation will be possible on desktops, and there will be open-source waifu projects, mobile is still controlled by app stores (Apple and Google Play) where age-based restrictions could be easily imposed. Jailbreaking/unlocking the phone (or installing an apk from Github), connecting it to a local server with AI models, and maintaining the server is so burdensome that I expect 90+% of potential users of easy-to-access AI partner apps would fall off.
This is not to mention that open-source projects developed by hardcore enthusiasts will probably cater for their specific edgy preferences and not appeal to a wide audience. E.g., an open-source project of anime waifus may optimise to trigger particular fetishes rather overall believability of the AI partner and the long-term appeal of the “relationship”. Open-source developers won’t be motivated to optimise the latter, unlike AI partner startups, because their lifetime customer value would directly depend on that.