I don't see the value to integrating this kind of thing with an LLM or find the presented use cases as compelling, but I'm always going to support more work related to Buttplug.io and I'm sure someone will find it useful.
It's unfortunate just how stigmatized such software (and the associated devices) still are because it's a very, very interesting field. I myself started what I thought was going to be a small haptic feedback side project and have fallen down a rabbithole I never could have imagined existing.
The sex toy/haptic feedback world has, if I'm honest, reignited my love for development.
Haptics is such a primal modality -- I've really enjoyed working with it. I used to evangelize it and present SFW demos to people around the world. You really do need to touch it to understand. Making the devices and experiences is really fun. It's easier than ever with modern Maker setups.
Like many things, there can be stigma e.g what Masters&Johnson faced, but if you are serious you can get past it pretty easily. We've done serious psychophysical studies and tried to make tools that helped people medically and emotionally.
But it's also OK to be playful too. More than anything about intimacy, this specific project was a quirky response to the "MCP All The Things" zeitgeist at the time.
Like writing science fiction, by working with these things early in any way, you earn an appreciation for the problems. After a week of MCP, it became abundantly clear about the Security and Observability problems. User configuration was rough too. I spent the next weeks working on sandboxing tech, MCP observability tech, and other ideas. None of that got to a good-enough-to-publish level, but my understanding/capability was increased.
Other issues are how you model consent of personal devices and maintain that with LLMs or other users. How do you define what the boundaries and shared capabilities are? Do you incorporate reputation? How do you distribute or federate that? How do you maintain anonymity but keep it useful? How do ephemeral agents get access to that data? [I don't explore any of that in this project.] These are general problems with MCP/A2A servers that will need to be solved. It's not just about buttplugs, but a slew of data and services, if we allow these AIs to become part of our daily life.
It's unfortunate just how stigmatized such software (and the associated devices) still are because it's a very, very interesting field. I myself started what I thought was going to be a small haptic feedback side project and have fallen down a rabbithole I never could have imagined existing.
The sex toy/haptic feedback world has, if I'm honest, reignited my love for development.