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Comment by Thomas_Lord | Hacker News Reader

I have one more line of questions. I have, um, observed that "cam" sex workers use teledildonics as a kind of "proof of life". The idea is that paying customers send signals to a sex toy in use by the performer, whose reaction reassures the customer that he is paying for a live show. It affords a way of (apparently) "doing stuff" to the performer in spite of the virtualized nature of the show.

Two part question:

1. A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here. Is there any current research in the direction of possible authentication methods to prevent such fakery?

2. What are we to make of the way this form of remote dominance (simulated or real) has been commodified and put in service of capital accumulation? Are not the paying customers even engaging in a form of self-domination, helping to reproduce their roles as wage slaves, by participating in this system of production?

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1. This is a topic that actually, seriously comes up often on cam model forums, and verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction?

2. Are you familiar with findom? Cause that's like, just straight up what findom is. Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish.

> Literally unbalanced trade of capital as fetish.

Chapter 1 in a nutshell, so to speak.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm...

Not to be confused with Commodity Fetishism? :p

How is this not an example of commodity fetishism?

As I understand it, the concept refers to reifying relationships between humans as relationships between things. Is this an example of that? People use this kind of stuff for the most varied reasons: long distance partners buy one for their SO, people online hand remote controls to roleplay doms... Hardly what Marx had in mind when criticising commodity fetishism ;)

Leaving aside how to apply marxian analysis to household relations, non-professional sexual partners, and so forth - the case of how people conceive cam sex workers using these things is an unambiguous example of marxian fetish. Your "human relations disguised as a relation between things" is laid pretty bare, there. That it also puns as "fetish" in a more conventional vulgar sense is just icing on that cake.

Ugggggggh I have a book chapter waiting to be published on ideas of labor and proxemics in digital intimacy that covers some of this.

So like, remember to check for that in September.

1. If you buy a ticket to a live theatre show you don't expect to see a movie.

> 1. If you buy a ticket to a live theatre show you don't expect to see a movie.

A live theater show doesn't seem comparable, since in the cam model's case they're being viewed through a screen regardless. Your sibling comment that compares it to finding out a live broadcast turns out to be a movie is more apt.

> verification of authenticity is, to me, something that is just completely fucked in terms of even being an idea. Do these same customers get angry when they find out the movie they just paid to see was fiction?

I mean, I think they would if they were told it was a live broadcast.

Of all the fetishes out there, I think wanting to view a person in real-time is one of the more easily understandable ones. I am positive that there are plenty of people out there who prefer watching a live cam over uploaded VODs, even if they never actually interact with the model.

I'm sure that cam models are exceptionally concerned about privacy for very good reasons, and I don't think anyone should be obligated to provide live verification if they don't want to. But it's not like it's an irrational request.

Ah, yeah, that's a better metaphor than what I gave there.

I'm also a bit divorced from the customer perspective in this situation because I've been working on the industry side for so long, so I have different expectations and views.

That said, as an implementer of technology of this type, my point was that I feel like live verification gets EXTREMELY INVASIVE in this context. Once you start bringing biometrics and really, hard numbers in general into the voyeurism of camming, it turns into this weird fractal of objectification that I haven't really had time to really unwrap in my head yet, which I'd kinda wanna do before even touching implementations of the tech itself.

Sure, that's reasonable. Your original comment sounded more like, "Why do people even care?" but I'm totally onboard with the idea that actually implementing something like that is very problematic.

From the customer point of view, though, "How do I know it's really them?" is a reasonable question because they don't really understand the implications of the answers.

You KNOW beforehand what actors are doing, or that a person you specifically paid to scam you is going to scam you.

Are people afraid of watching a recorded show? Or are they afraid of watching a "virtual" model who is the creation of an AI?

In the former case. wouldn't the "cam" worker be able to achieve the same "proof of life" by simply having a conversation with the customer? Eg, the customer types something in chat, and the worker responds on the live stream?

In the latter case, if it is all virtual, then its all virtual, and response to a toy could just be faked.

> A sufficiently sophisticated operation could use canned footage to fake the apparent call and response here

I mean, if the tech reaches such heights that a customer can't tell it from a human, does it even matter for the customer?

(Actually I think that on an emotional level it does, but realistically it's a question of inputs to the brain, i.e. the whole Matrix mind-body thing. Anyway, I'm sure this is firmly in the AGI territory.)

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