Vice recently published an article about the recent tech industry boom in the boner sector. As DelveInsight Market Forecasts reported last year, the Global Erectile Dysfunction Devices Market was valid at around $1.8 billion in 2021, but is growing at a rate of nearly 10%, and expected to reach a valuation of over $3 billion by 2027. That's big money for a buncha dicks!
There was one part in the Vice article that really stuck out to me: MYHIXEL, a new company that wants to apply the sexy trend of AI Machine Learning to erectile dysfunction. From Vice:
Patricia López worked for years in the sex tech industry before founding Myhixel, another erectile technology that gamifies cognitive behavioral therapy to treat premature ejaculation and improve sexual function through an app-linked guided masturbatory device.
The latest version of the Myhixel Play app uses AI to give the user personalized, real-time guidance while they complete an eight-week, clinical trial-tested program developed by researchers from the ISM (Murcia Sexological Institute) and the University of Elche in Spain. Movement and speed sensors capture each of the steps in users' masturbation sessions to provide data points like duration, intensity, and heart rate, and based on that data, the app suggests individualized cognitive behavioral therapy to help with the mental aspects of premature ejaculation, as well as nutrition and fitness recommendations for the physical.
It's an interesting approach; jokes aside, there are a wide range of factors involved in erectile dysfunction, so maybe this Big Data crunch could be helpful. (The Vice article also mentions FirmTech, a vibrating cock ring that you wear overnight to gather data on your nocturnal erections; basically a FitBit for your FitPrick.) At the same time, I feel like there's a large target audience of Boomers with disposable income that's ripe to fall for AI boner cons. Consider that MYHIXEL's app focuses factors in things like "mindfulness" and dietary changes — two other industries that are also ripe for pseudo-scientific marketing exploitation. And of course, these concerns are all before you get into the myriad privacy concerns of your penis data!
But hey, it could still be helpful for some folks. Erectile dysfunction can be hard to deal with! Or, well, not hard, but you get the idea.
Erection Tech Is Rising as Younger Patients Treat Dysfunction with AI [Clara Wang / Vice]
