Digitalization offers new ways for fulfilling fundamental social and sexual needs.
Despite its significance, this aspect of HCI and HRI remains underrepresented in academic discussions. There is a growing trend towards developing applications tailored for fostering intimate interactions between individuals and even with artificial entities. To allow an informed discussion about the responsible usage of such technologies, empirical research is needed.
INTITEC, short for Intimacy with and through Technology, is a junior research group headed by Dr. Jessica Szczuka, which is dedicated to researching various dimensions of digitized intimacy. Our research priorities include:
• Relationship Formation with Conversational Agents
We investigate who forms emotional, romantic, and sexual relationships with AI-driven conversational agents. We identify psychological factors such as fantasy ability, attachment styles, and emotional needs that predict engagement. By challenging stereotypes like the assumption that loneliness is the primary driver, we reveal more nuanced motivations behind digital intimacy. Our work also explores how platform design, gamification, and commercialization shape user expectations and relational experiences.
• Authentic Communication in the Age of Text-Generating AI
We examine how the rise of AI-generated text challenges authenticity in online communication, particularly in intimate and personal contexts. Our research investigates how AI-mediated communication influences perceptions of sincerity, emotional closeness, and trust. We raise important questions for interpersonal relationships in a digitized world.
• Digitized Intimacy for People with Disabilities
We explore the potential of digital technologies to promote social and sexual self-determination for individuals with disabilities. Our research highlights both the opportunities offered by digital intimacy tools and the challenges related to accessibility, representation, and the psychological impact of engaging with artificial companions.
• Artificial Stimuli and Sexual Violence Prevention
We investigate whether artificially generated sexual content could serve as a substitute for problematic or deviant sexual interests. We assess both its potential for harm reduction and its risks of normalization or reinforcement. This line of research critically examines how individuals respond to artificial sexual stimuli and what implications this has for prevention strategies.
• Privacy, Emotional Vulnerability and Power in Digital Intimacy
Privacy is not only a technical or legal concern but deeply intertwined with emotional vulnerability and power dynamics in digital intimacy. Dr. Jessica Szczuka leads the interdisciplinary consortium and serves as principal investigator of the BMBF-funded research project SENTIMENT https://project-sentiment.org/, which brings together expertise from psychology, computer science, law, and the arts. The project empirically investigates how privacy concerns shape emotional experiences in human AI interactions. It examines how users navigate the trade-offs between connection, data exposure, and control, and how privacy practices affect trust, authenticity, and intimacy in mediated relationships.
INTITEC employs a multimodal empirical approach. We combine experimental studies, large-scale surveys, physiological methods like eye-tracking, and in-depth interviews. We collaborate across psychology, AI, law, ethics, media studies, and the arts to generate holistic insights that inform technology design, policy, and public understanding. By centering privacy and ethical reflection in our research, we aim to guide responsible innovation in the future of digital intimacy.
We invite you to join us on this exploration of digitalized intimacy!
INTITEC 