Sexbots

Written December, 2013

fembot_by_stephen_wheeler

The infrastructure (and presumably the technology) exists to create a robot with synthetic skin and artificial intelligence capable of learning owners’ preferences. Perhaps the most interesting part of the “sexbot” phenomenon is that bot prototypes are not limited to sexual uses, but designed to express love and affection and develop a vocabulary suited to the buyer’s interests. Obvious issues that accompany the introduction of such robots include: changing norms and values in human interaction; the possible formation of social bonds or exclusive sexual relationships with robots; sex addiction; transference of expectations from robot relationships to human relationships (including issues of dominance, behavioral expectations, and consent); the further commodification of sex; attachment issues. Advocates say that sexbots can help curb prostitution, sex crimes, and the spread of STDs.

Earlier this year, a Pew report on robots, “A.I., Robotics, and the Future of Jobs,” included a line by Stowe Boyd (one of 1900 people interviewed for the report), the lead researcher for Gigaom Research, who said that by 2025, “Robotic sex partners will be commonplace, although the source of scorn and division,” but that sexbots will viewed by some in the same way that we currently “bemoan selfies as an indicator of all that’s wrong with the world.” Whether or not that’s true, it certainly caused a media frenzy and started a discussion about the future and ethics of sex with robots.