Mashable Selects Creator Playbook Look Up Mashable's Best: E-readers, robovacs, laptops, earbuds, smart home and more In My Bag Say More Trending Now Back to School Good Connection: Uplifting stories for a digital age Switch Off Mashable Voices Safety Net All Series A'masturbation consultant' for an AI companion company tells all We would be chatting on the platform, and it would get a bit steamy. Anna Iovine is the associate editor of features at Mashable. Previously, as the sex and relationships reporter, she covered topics ranging from dating apps to pelvic pain. Before Mashable, Anna was a social editor at VICE and freelanced for publications such as Slate and the Columbia Journalism Review. Follow her on Bluesky .

These'Masturbation Consultants' Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI Joi AI hired 10 people to masturbate using AI companions as part of a monthlong "wellness" study. The company claims the practice could help "solve male loneliness." For 28 days, Keshav had a new item on his daily to-do list: masturbate for research purposes. Both before and after self-pleasuring, he logged his mood, energy levels, cravings for various vices, and whether he was procrastinating. Keshav was taking part in AI companion company Joi AI's experiment assessing what happens if erotic self-stimulation becomes "an AI-guided wellness ritual."

Another such invention, 3-D printing, is now scaling up. All over the world, an impressive diversity of people and organizations, ranging from startups and hobbyists to construction and engineering firms, are successfully prototyping 3-D-printed buildings. The government of Dubai has set a goal of 3-D printing 25% of every new building by 2030. Prototype single-family dwellings have been 3-D-printed in China, Italy, Russia--and Texas. Global infrastructure firm AECOM ACM 2.59% uses 3-D printing to prefabricate jail cells and hospital rooms.