When Ashley Neale started college in Texas in 2013, she needed money to pay for school. So, at the age of 18, she worked first as a cam girl and then as a stripper. Men would try to slip their fingers between her legs as she walked from the stage to the dressing room so often that she learned how to dislocate their shoulders. After her third successful dislocation, her manager told her to stop defending herself. Since then, she's continued her career in sex work – but in the tech world. She worked at FetLife, a social network for the fetish community; experimented with a subscription site for adult content where users paid in crypto; and has now created her own AI romance app: MyPeach.ai, which uses AI-generated text and imagery to replicate the experience of chatting – and sexting – with someone online.

San Francisco-based robotics company Anki is launching today a new robot called Vector. It drives on little tank treads, has an expressive LCD face, and is constantly moving around, making beeps and bloops. Vector resembles Anki's previous robot, Cozmo, but is packed with more technology--and character. Anki says Vector is designed as a robot companion and helper for people at home. But don't expect much: The robot has a tiny voice and can barely push a coffee mug around.