@ve4grm The way you describe it it almost sounds like prostitution just without any sex involved. You get the scenario you pay for, but since you are interacting with real people, it's more personal.
That's not exactly inaccurate?
I think of it more like going to a theme restaurant. Say, Medieval Times, or anywhere at Disney. Or maybe a professionally-constructed murder mystery dinner. There's people all around paid to construct and fill out a scene for you without breaking character.
Or imagine playing a deep RPG, a la (say) Mass Effect, where it isn't constrained by the script. Where other people take on the roles of your companions (and not just internet randos like a game of, say, Halo would have) and help immerse you in the story.
Heck, I'm sure Ractives take the place of a lot of tabletop RPGs, too.
There are, of course, adult versions as well. Some ractors choose not to do those, but they pay well. Especially with the bunraku-like artificial simsense personalities that shadowrun has, I think these would be relatively common. That said, for what most people want out of prostitution and porn, ractors wouldn't be entirely necessary. A program could satisfy those needs without the subscription cost. So again, ractives would be for those not satisfied with pre-programmed responses, and with the money to pay the ractors.
It also reminds me of a format that's popular in Japan right now. I forget what it's called but it's essentially people accompanying you through mundane tasks almost via Skype, so that all the singles don't have to feel so lonely. That's probably a common use for ractors as well in Shadowrun I would at least imagine. As in Shadowrun people have even less time for companionship than people nowadays...
Most likely, yeah! Since these would only require occasional interaction, a good ractor would probably have 2 or 3 of these types going simultaneously, switching off between them as the need arises, and letting algorithms handle just enough of the facial expressions and gestures that they wouldn't need to dedicate too much attention to any of them. They would also be cheaper since they don't need constant, full dedication of a ractor.
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Other things to note:
The main reason for ractives was that, although a computer could hold a conversation, it was wooden. It had no emotion, body language of VR avatars was never quite right, and improvisation was iffy at best. Ractives use the human ractors to provide that emotion and improvisation, even if the computer itself provides the basic words.
A single ractor might play two, three, or even all of the roles in a given ractive. With computer assistance for what to say (personality chips, or just computer-generated scripts) one or two ractors could fill an entire ractive.