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from the some-topics-are-just-too-weird-for-words dept.
The folks over at CNBC have dug up some experts to explore the question should you have sex with robots:
Should we be having sex with robots?
It's a question that has sparked fierce debate among moralists and the robotics industry. And it turns out, they're all split on what role machines should play in future relationships.
During a discussion at the Web Summit technology conference in Dublin on Wednesday, experts warned about the dangers of getting intimate with robots.
"It's something we should be very concerned about...because if people feel they can have an intimate relationship with a machine, that is saying something serious about how we're experiencing empathy with each other," Kathleen Richardson, senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at the U.K.'s De Montfort University, said during the panel.
The academic, who launched the "campaign against sex robots" earlier this year, added that "we are losing our sense of humanity."
How, exactly, do you get to be an expert on banging robots? Just saying...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:34PM
This is a very old issue. On Cyprus in ancient times, a guy named Pygmalion carved a "perfect woman" out of ivory, after he had bad experience with promiscuous women reviewing his video game. He prayed to Aphrodite, and she turned the statue into a real woman. George Bernard Shaw's play of the same name is based on this, and the film "My Fair Lady" was based on the play. But there is more. Alchemists tried to create a small human, a homonculus, or a mandragora, not to mention Pinnoccio who became a real boy, of the golem of Medieval Jewish alchemy. And recently, the film "Ex Machina" was dealing with the same meme. It does give us some idea of what the ethical issue is.
People who want to create people for their own purposes are unethical. They want slaves, but, you know, slavery is kind of out of style. And even when slavery was acceptable, these people wanted to improve the humans they own. Except, of course, that the "improvements" are deformation of humanity that result from the creator's inability to deal with other people. The real problem, as brought up above, and the major theme of "Ex Machina", is that if you create something close enough to human to, um, satisfy, we enter into the uncanny valley, and lose control or even are destroyed by the creation. Frankenstein sex-bots, anyone?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:41PM
Blame Disney. It wasn't his nose that grows.
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(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:24PM
That's why I said not to mention it.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:50AM
I do but think sentient ai is either necessary or desirable.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday November 08 2015, @01:08AM
A a Homonculus and a Mandragora are two completely different things, the homonculus was an attempt to prove the Preformationist theory [wikipedia.org] which believed a sperm was a teeny tiny fully formed human that need only the correct conditions to grow, which a Mandragora is a doll given by the devil [wikipedia.org] to be consulted when they need answers, similar to a familiar.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday November 08 2015, @02:10AM
Does it bother anyone besides me that Hairyfeet should know this? Thanks for the clarification, Hairy!
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday November 08 2015, @03:43AM
Is it so shocking that I like to read about the history of science and technology? Man has had a lot of dead ends and bad theories and until just recently science was more associated with "magic" than with verifiable proofs.
If you want to see just how many twists and turns there are along the way to knowledge a great video to start with is the race for absolute zero [youtube.com], the winding road that came with our understanding of what cold is and how it actually works is quite fascinating.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday November 10 2015, @02:47PM
>People who want to create people for their own purposes are unethical. They want slaves
I think this is wrong. What if I want to create a daughter or a son, but I don't want to be married and I cannot adopt? Is that unethical? Is my "child" a slave?
Human relationship is all about using each other for our own purposes; that is not inherently unethical. It may seem cold, but even friends and family are used selfishly for emotional and personal support. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
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