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The concept of AI—specifically of the foxy, sexualized persuasion—has permeated pop culture for a very long time, most recently exemplified with Alex Garland's Ex Machina.
Technology, as it is wont to do, continues surging forward, simultaneously beckoning or threatening (depending on personal outlook) the potential of true artificial intelligence. And should these AI rise up, what kind of role would sexuality and sexual identity play in their existence—if at all? Hopes&Fears corralled a group of varied experts to weigh in through a group panel discussion to see what the future holds for us, the AI... and our respective crotch parts.
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Artificial Sexuality: A Round-Table Discussion on Screwing Robots
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Suffocating together ... would create heroic camaraderie.
-- Khan Noonian Singh, "Space Seed", stardate 3142.8
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday May 23 2015, @02:15PM
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 23 2015, @04:40PM
He's got a good point though (and so do you): lots of people only continue to pursue dating because they don't want to be lonely, and they want sex. What happens when you don't need to work for that, and you can have easy sex with an extremely attractive "person" whenever you want? Some men will still want to work hard because they want a real woman and real status, but for men who just aren't going to make it to the top, why would they bother toiling in boring jobs (as the laborious ones will be taken by robots, remember, so we're probably talking about boring customer-service or other office-drone type jobs), so they can try to attract homely women, when they can just do nothing instead and hang out with their femmebot?
The same goes for women too: I've seen countless women complain about men, about the dating pool of men available to them, etc. You don't think a bunch of them aren't going to "opt out" of the dating game too? I see tons of them on OKCupid: around 40 years old, and still unmarried (and never married; there's a question about this in there). These women, just like unmarried men of that age, probably have some personality flaw that makes them poorly suited for marriage; I can see both groups simply giving up on dating (just as lots of them already have done now in the absence of sexbots) and getting a sexbot and keeping themselves occupied with that. If they can make the sexbots advanced enough to look and feel almost just like humans, and also do all the chores like Rosie in the Jetsons, then your drive to find a domestic companion won't be as great.
As for reproduction, that's usually more of a drive for women, not men. And women don't need male companions to have children; it's easy enough for them to just convince a man to come home with them for a night. Lots and lots of women are already doing this (which is pretty scary, when you consider how these kids are going to be raised).
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Sunday May 24 2015, @10:45PM
If they can make the sexbots advanced enough to look and feel almost just like humans, and also do all the chores like Rosie in the Jetsons, then your drive to find a domestic companion won't be as great.
We've already got (human) prostitutes and maids, and they don't seem to have decreased the desire for domestic companionship.
As for reproduction, that's usually more of a drive for women, not men.
I've got to disagree with that. My wife left the decision in my hands, and I asked her to get off of birth control. I've known men to be the driving force for reproduction at least as often as the women have been. Men and women just tend to show the same desire in different ways.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 25 2015, @01:33AM
We've already got (human) prostitutes and maids, and they don't seem to have decreased the desire for domestic companionship.
Total red herring. Prostitutes are 1) illegal in most places, and 2) expensive for good ones. The cheap ones only really, really desperate men hire, because they're drugged out. They don't look like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman". The ones who do look like that are hard to find, and extremely expensive. I don't know about you, but I can't afford $1K+ per night for sex.
Maids are cheaper, but most people still can't afford those; you need to be middle-middle-class at the very lowest to hire maids, and even then they'll only be coming by twice a month. If you want a full-time maid and cook in western society, you have to be rich.
As for reproduction, you've got a good point, but I think it's really hard to say as we both have our anecdotes and biased perspectives. It does seem to me that religious and/or conservative men are really big on reproduction, and non-religious men not so much.
(Score: 2) by khedoros on Monday May 25 2015, @02:03AM
Prostitutes are 1) illegal in most places
...but still available in most of those places, anyhow.
and 2) expensive for good ones.
What's your point? I'd expect the same to be true about sex robots.
Maids are cheaper, but most people still can't afford those;
And again, I'd expect the same thing with robots, at least for "good ones", with the bar of quality being raised iteratively higher (along with the price) for the top models over time. By the time they've filtered down to people of average incomes, I'd expect that the culture around them would've gelled, and that may include a lot of the areas that prohibit prostitution also outlawing robot sex.
I just see them causing a lot of noise and outcry, but not intrinsically changing the societies they're introduced to. Prudes will stay prudes, the uninhibited may have another option available, and most people will stick with their hand rather than paying the price of a car for a robot.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday May 25 2015, @02:19AM
...but still available in most of those places, anyhow.
Where? In the ghetto? I don't know about you, but personally, if my life depended on me finding a prostitute in 30 minutes where I live now, I'd be dead, unless I got lucky with Craigslist (and last I heard they had cracked down on that there). And as I said, you have to be really desperate to risk catching AIDS to sleep with a street-walker.
What's your point? I'd expect the same to be true about sex robots.
Why on earth would you expect that? Is the same true of smartphones? Can only really rich people afford smartphones? What about Roombas? Last I checked, anyone could buy those with a few hundred dollars. Technology has a habit of becoming really cheap when it's popular, thanks to the miracle of mass production. The same isn't true of services provided by humans. Heck, just look at the kind of car you can buy now in the "economy" section (or on a used car lot). Today's $5k used car makes a 25-year-old luxury car look like a POS.
with the bar of quality being raised iteratively higher (along with the price) for the top models over time. By the time they've filtered down to people of average incomes,
It didn't take long for top-quality smartphones to filter down to average income people. Top-quality cars (esp. judging by standards of the past) are well within the reach of average income people too.
and that may include a lot of the areas that prohibit prostitution also outlawing robot sex.
How are they going to enforce that? Cameras in everyone's bedroom? As you pointed out, laws against prostitution haven't stopped that by any means, but at least there the problem is that prostitution requires real, live, breathing humans, who need to eat, sleep, and live their lives (they don't stay permanently with their johns). A femmebot can be shipped in pieces to your house and kept inside, has no will to escape, doesn't need food or medical care, and can be switched off when not wanted.
rather than paying the price of a car for a robot.
There you go again with your crazy assumptions. 15 years ago someone probably said the same thing about smartphones. Several decades ago, people said the same thing about home computers. "No one will want computers in their homes! They're too expensive!"