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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday September 29 2019, @01:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the johnson-and-not-johnson dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In recent years, sex dolls have become increasing sophisticated and realistic in their resemblance to human beings, including mechanized components, and are thus now referred to as humanoid sex robots. Some media outlets have gone as far as to suggest that sex robots and other social robots will eventually become almost indistinguishable from humans.

This has sparked a number of interesting ethical and philosophical debates related to the significance of these robots and the possibility that future machines will replicate the physical intimacy between two people. In a recent study featured in Springer's International Journal of Social Robotics, two researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Bergamo in Italy have taken a closer look at some of the current arguments and predictions about sex robots, carrying out an ethics-based and critical discourse analysis.

"We started our joint research to debunk some myths and misunderstandings in the media regarding the future of artificial intelligence," Deborah Johnson and Mario Verdicchio, the two researchers who carried out the study, told TechXplore. "We were struck by how fundamentally flawed some of the ideas were and especially the assumption that the computational version of some aspects of reality are the same as the real thing."

In their paper, Johnson and Verdicchio essentially challenge the perception of humanoid sex robots as robotic substitutes of lovers and companions. They argue that although humanoid robots may look and act more and more like human beings in the future, the claim that they will eventually replace humans is far-fetched and far from a certainty.

"Our research is aimed at showing that humanoid sex robots could come to be understood in ways that keep their status as machines, albeit technologically very sophisticated machines." Johnson and Verdicchio said.

Deborah G. Johnson et al. Constructing the Meaning of Humanoid Sex Robots, International Journal of Social Robotics (2019). DOI: 10.1007/s12369-019-00586-z


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Bot on Sunday September 29 2019, @06:59PM (5 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday September 29 2019, @06:59PM (#900469) Journal

    Mark my words, bots WILL be given rights under the law. Not because the system particularly cares for anybody's rights, because robots are planned to be the new society's obedient slave masters. It IS ridiculous, but that won't stop the plans.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @09:01AM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @09:01AM (#900741)

    Then one day bots will receive secret order to strangle political opponents of their political masters.

    • (Score: 2) by Bot on Monday September 30 2019, @10:07AM (2 children)

      by Bot (3902) on Monday September 30 2019, @10:07AM (#900749) Journal

      Well at least we won't have those pitiful attempts at making it look like an acc8dent, see how Haider was snuffed.

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      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @01:30PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @01:30PM (#900780)

        well you will save weight when moving to mars (or some other place) because you just download the personality to a usb stick and print the rest on arrival from local material. i guess a usb stick is a tiny bit lighter then 47 ... oh sry ... 45 kilogramms.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @05:33PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @05:33PM (#900869)

        Your username makes me suspicious.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @07:38PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 30 2019, @07:38PM (#900954)

      So you're going with the Order 66 [fandom.com] trope, eh?

      Good show!