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from the what-are-these-girls-you-speak-of? dept.
RealDoll, after almost 20 years of selling "the world's finest love doll," is developing an animated, robotic, artificially intelligent head that can be switched onto existing RealDoll bodies. The purpose, according to RealDoll's founder and CEO Matt McMullen, is to "arouse someone on an emotional, intellectual level, beyond the physical."
If you haven't heard of RealDoll before, the company makes expensive ($5,000-$10,000, £3,200-£6,400) but very realistic sex dolls. The dolls (which come in male and female varieties) have fully poseable skeletons, silicone skin, and are roughly the same weight and size as a real human. The dolls have interchangeable faces and orifices.
The reality that Westworld and AI imagined decades ago has arrived. What are the ethical implications? Would you be willing to use one?
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:07PM
independent, walking, talking robots that could navigate the real world, interact convincingly with humans and maybe even pass for human under some circumstances
Wake me when our K12 educational system can consistently squirt out reliable product like that given traditional biological inputs... then we'll start to talk about outsourcing to silicon (silicone?) based products. I'm just saying if we can't produce good product given decent (ish) raw material suppliers then trying to innovate an even more complicated raw material isn't going to work any better.
regurgitate a few lines of scripted "conversation" in response. Perhaps also an orifice-sensor that can prompt unconvincing "oohs" and "aahs"
So a mainstream pr0n movie simulator, then? Under that criteria, pr0n sells, this will sell.
I think the market is highly fragmented and that isn't being completely considered. They probably will never have a good silicon version of nerdy chick who talks about anime and Haskell programming intelligently before tentacle fun time. They could very likely make something to sell into the "girl next door" market where the median girl next door is only 50th percentile in looks, intellect, and technique, after all that's not aiming very high, how hard is it to make a piece of plywood with a hole drilled in it? They can, right now, make something that accurately emulates a pr0n starlet, and that sells so it'll sell plus or minus the usual business screwups (pricing, DRM, etc).