TOKYO (TR) – Generative AI is rapidly infiltrating everyday life, but in Japan’s neon-lit entertainment districts, the technology is fueling a new underground “bluffing society.”
According to a recent survey by weekly magazine Spa! (July 21-28), women working in the nightlife and sex industries are utilizing clever AI tactics to manipulate clients, fake their appearances, and boost their earnings.
For 24-year-old Sakura Tanaka (pseudonym), who is looking for partners interested in papakatsu (compensated dating), AI has become an essential tool for securing wealthy men in the papakatsu scene. Tanaka told the magazine that women now apply for arrangements by sending photos and profiles to private Line chat groups.
“Since I started using AI to enhance my photos, my passing rate has skyrocketed,” Tanaka said. “You can alter your face with regular apps, but AI naturally enlarges my breasts, which is a huge help.”
AI to draft all messages
Tanaka also relies on the technology to avoid scaring off potential sugar daddies. After a client balked at her request to dine at a high-end Ebisu steakhouse, she now feeds her conditions into an AI prompt to instantly generate a list of restaurants in a more acceptable price range. Having been scolded at age 19 for using incorrect polite Japanese (keigo), she also uses AI to draft all messages to her clients.
In Kitashinchi, Osaka’s premier nightlife district, 27-year-old hostess Yuki Hashimoto (pseudonym) uses the technology to bait hesitant customers.
To grab the attention of a client who hadn’t visited the club recently, Hashimoto used AI to generate a photo of herself with a bob haircut. The ruse worked, and the man promised to visit the club the next day.
“I didn’t actually have time to go get my hair cut, so I asked the AI to come up with an excuse. It advised me to tell him I had put in hair extensions,” Hashimoto laughed. “I used an AI lie to cover up an AI lie. It’s pretty pathetic.”
Fake alibis
Hashimoto also uses the technology to create fake alibis. When clients ask for private photos, she takes a picture from a paid date with a different customer, uses AI to generate a fake female friend into the frame, and passes it off as a “girls’ night out.”
However, the high-tech deception doesn’t always go according to plan. Momo Nakamura, 21, also a pseudonym, who works as a “delivery health” escort at a shop specializing in chubby women, was recently busted by internet sleuths.
“I’m bad at writing the mandatory ‘thank you’ diary entries for clients, so I left it entirely up to AI,” Nakamura said. “But then someone wrote on an online bulletin board, ‘This girl is having AI write all her diaries!'”
Nakamura had been copying and pasting the AI-generated text directly into her blog. The copied text retained its default Mincho font, making her posts look suspiciously different from those of the other escorts.
As the technology continues to evolve, industry insiders joke that the day may soon come when clients in Japan’s nightlife districts realize they are being entertained entirely by AI.
