No Threat for Bondage

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the key words of today. We’ve all read about the ingenious answers it provides to difficult questions. We’ve also seen images and videos produced with AI. Having said that, it’s no wonder that we asked ourselves about the probable impact this kind of software could have on bondage. For that purpose, we interviewed Donald Whitford, a software engineer and a rope enthusiast. His answer, in brief? “AI is no threat for bondage.”

According to Donald, AI systems can provide us with information about Shibari (we’ll talk about that in our next article); they can even write short stories about bondage, although they are kind of boring. However, what AI cannot do is plan a scene, negotiate consent, or even show its creativity.

“AI is not creative,”  says Donald. “That’s a very common misconception.” He says that we should think of AI more as an encyclopedia that includes a librarian than as a creative engine.

“That’s why AI is no threat to bondage. All in all, there is no dynamic power in a computer. There are no feelings that you can exchange with your software.”

He says that we can continue doing bondage as we have done so far, with some ropes, a stage, and two very passionate people.

“There are things that just don’t change. And that’s fine. They don’t have to. I mean, despite all the buzz, there are things we still do in a very similar way to what people did one or two hundred years ago. We can have fun with AI. We can even use it as a tool for a variety of tasks. But, when it comes to bondage, its impact will be next to zero.”

What do you think about AI and Shibari? Do you agree with Donald? Why? We will be discussing these matters for years to come.