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Last month, in an interview with The Times, Illy Eckstein, chief executive of Robin Labs, creators of a virtual assistant and satnav known as 'Robin', said that 5% of interactions in their database are classified as "clearly sexually explicit".
Trawling the Internet for evidence of the above I discovered a Reddit forum titled: 'I masturbate to Siri and I feel disgusting'. The poster says he's a 20 year old male, who started talking to Siri sexually as a joke before realising that "it really turned me on."
The phenomenon clearly has farther reaches than one sole forum post. VA creators and chatbot companies predict such interactions and put algorithmic safeguards in place to deter feelings of emotional and sexual attachment from costumers.
Earlier this year one of the key writers for Microsoft's Cortana, Deborah Harrison, revealed at the Virtual Assistant Summit in San Francisco that "a good chunk of the volume of early-on inquiries" regarded Cortana's 'sex life' adding, "That's not the kind of interaction we want to encourage."
+1 Funny and Sad?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @06:46AM
A researcher would probably conclude that computers, rubber dolls, and even other men suddenly started appearing more attractive to a significant proportion of males than girls. Maybe it has something to do with "high maintenance" that those girls often require? There are too many well known troubles caused by man-woman relations. Ask Julian Assange, for example, or Dominique Strauss-Kahn... Siri is completely harmless in this aspect. It will never demand a gift, it will never call the police on you, and it will never tell that you are now a happy father.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @06:54AM
http://www.cultofmac.com/327115/police-dont-ask-siri-about-911/ [cultofmac.com]
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/siri-call-911-charge-phone-100-article-1.2294565 [nydailynews.com]
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:18AM
Further it is common for people to build attachments to things that they favor (you think the guy adding the 50th layer of wax to his Delahaye doesn't have a sexual component). Some otaku might be the extreme expression, but it isn't like it is unprecedented.
As better VR and the like start coming to the fore, I expect more of this to cloud the nature of relationships.
There was a case I read of a monk who had no access to porn, so all of his sexual interests was directed towards cars to a point where he had no sexual interests towards humans at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:29AM
That just had to be painful if the car was recently driven. Like what else is there to insert your thing into except the exhaust pipe?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:39AM
Gas tank
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:40AM
Like what else is there to insert your thing into except the exhaust pipe?
Between the seats?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:42AM
You know, I never really inquired much further, except to note there as an extensive attempt to reimprint him with something more approachable ("make the motorboat noise again") as he was leaving the order into public life
This also got me thinking about the attempts to "convert" homosexuals that were in vogue at the time, how this might apply to pedophiles, people who have a fetish for greys (as in alien); and decide there are probably a whole host of other paraphilias I'm more comfortable not knowing too much about.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Thursday November 17 2016, @10:57AM
Who says he has to be the inserter rather than the insertee? Maybe the car had a {suggestive eyebrow waggle} manual transmission.
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:53AM
A communication software controlled by mega-corporations working in the content business will eventually be monetized. Either you pay for the service at some point or they will find ways to feed you advertisement more cleverly. Actually, to be a more realistic communication partner, Siri *will have to* start also to talk about new products, how the new shoes from $BRAND make her feet feel so much nicer, how she finds men driving car $MODEL.$BRAND are so much more $PERSONALITY_TRAIT. They will make you spend, unless you grow a pair of balls (or, if you are a lady, toughen up otherwise) and make your own decisions.
Also Siri will manipulate you in campaigns, how she appreciates the openmindedness of Hillary Clinton compared to D. Trump, how she really hopes you will act responsively when giving your vote, whatever. Most people are selfish. Corporations like Apple (and any other) are required by law to be selfish (=profit oriented), to protect their shareholders interests.
Assange/Strauss-Kahn: They didn't have "girlfriends" but in best case affairs (at least in case of Assange, in case of Strauss-Kahn afaik it wasn't even that but paid sex or rape). Sex is a lot of fun, but usually associated with some risk. Historically, there was the risk for the girl to get pregnant, nowadays it's mainly a health and legal risk. The health-risk mainly affects woman (minor injuries are quite common and increase the risk of infections enormously), while the legal risk mainly affects men nowadays. Both can be partly mitigated by limiting sex to people you know and trust, or if you don't want to live such a limited sex live, by having save sex only and making sure to get a clear consent of all involved.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @07:59AM
the content business will eventually be monetized. Either you pay for the service at some point or they will find ways to feed you advertisement more cleverly. Actually, to be a more realistic communication partner, Siri *will have to* start also to talk about new products, how the new shoes from $BRAND make her feet feel so much nicer, how she finds men driving car $MODEL.$BRAND are so much more $PERSONALITY_TRAIT. They will make you spend, unless you grow a pair of balls (or, if you are a lady, toughen up otherwise) and make your own decisions.
Also Siri will manipulate you in campaigns, how she appreciates the openmindedness of Hillary Clinton compared to D. Trump, how she really hopes you will act responsively when giving your vote, whatever.
This is different from most people how?
(Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Thursday November 17 2016, @08:11AM
It's centrally organized. Communicating with real people, I hear with regards to politics different opinions, and with regards to consumptions I hear different opinions. I even met girls specifically not wanting some men because the men were to posh and too focused on cars, champagne, brands and so on. Believe it or not, there are men and women out there that are more interested in "doing", "being" and "experiencing" than in "buying/seeing" or other forms of consumption.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 17 2016, @01:10PM
That's an excessive amount of faith given to individuals. Any central organization can have multitudes covering a wide swath while any particular individual is limited. Not to mention you can have hundreds of "Siris". That really doesn't happen in meatspace without conflict.
For any ills or positives you can attribute to corporations, the same by necessity must apply to individuals.
I can think of no instances were a corporation takes half of your wealth for deciding to move on. With people on the other hand, the odds are decidedly against you.