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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: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:15PM
I'm not interested in using anything like this, because I have a real live human partner in my life that makes me much happier than any doll ever could.
But I do see this kind of thing as potentially extremely useful for those whose proclivities tend towards activities which harm others. For example, if somebody only really gets off when their partner is unwilling, it would be much better for them to rape a doll than a real person. Or you could conceivably build one of these that looks like a child, allowing the pedophiles out there to do what they would like to do without harming a real child. Satisfying those people while putting dolls at risk rather than people would probably make real people safer.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:30PM
This just makes them unsuitable to be a part of the human race, they will never treat a real person with respect. On the other hand, at least they won't be procreating their DNA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:40PM
If people get sent to jail for possessing child porn, why wouldn't they be sent to jail for possessing child dolls?
It's much harder to hide a child doll than a stash of child porn.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:18PM
For the same reason that traditionally/in many jurisdictions there's no crime involved in possessing illustrated "child porn". Child porn laws are generally (initially) about protecting children - actual child porn necessitates child abuse, and thus by possessing it you are commissioning that abuse - just as you commission the slaughter of an animal whenever you eat meat. Yes, that assumes that there's money/status/emotional satisfaction involved in the distribution that promotes further abuses that would not have occurred otherwise - but that's pretty common with laws that attack the demand-side of a problem.
Dolls, like illustrated "child porn", are entirely fictional and do not harm children in any way. You could argue that you're cultivating dangerous appetites, but you could just as easily argue that the appetites clearly already exist, and by sating them with fiction you are reducing the temptation for actual abuse.
Aside: Yes, sometimes I *am* disturbed by bits of random trivia that have accumulated in my skull.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:58PM
In some countries it's illegal to make drawings of underage sex and underage people may not photograph them self without clothes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @07:15AM
In some countries it is illegal for women to drive cars.
In some countries it is illegal to say anything negative about the government, even if it is true.
Just because something is illegal in some countries, it isn't automatically wrong. It of course also isn't automatically right. It's just that whether it is illegal in some countries makes a very weak argument on whether it is a good or bad thing.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:20PM
If people get sent to jail for possessing child porn, why wouldn't they be sent to jail for possessing child dolls?
People shouldn't get arrested for either.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @03:29PM
There's an important distinction: Production of child porn harms children. Production of child dolls doesn't.
Imagine a butcher who sells human meat. How should we treat the customers of that butcher (assuming they know they buy human meat, of course)? Should they not be arrested because, after all, they didn't kill those humans, they only bought their meat after they were already dead?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday June 17 2015, @06:25PM
Production of child porn harms children.
Yes, production.
Imagine a butcher who sells human meat. How should we treat the customers of that butcher (assuming they know they buy human meat, of course)? Should they not be arrested because, after all, they didn't kill those humans, they only bought their meat after they were already dead?
Correct. Arrest people who take harmful actions.
And I'm sure there are plenty of cases where people obtain child pornography without paying for it at all. While lack of gain is not harm, using the logic of copyright thugs, this harms the producers, making it a net win. But their logic is broken anyway.
(Score: 2) by mrchew1982 on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:41PM
My only fear is that instead of being just a replacement it will rather encourage the behavior and be used for (*shudder*) practice.
Never heard of a rapist of any flavor that could content themselves with pictures or even videos. On the contrary, there is some disturbing research that rapists model their behavior after what they've seen.
I will concede however that the research is probably flawed, their sample is only those who came forward or got caught.
And I'd rather talk about something a little more socially accepted, so that's it from me...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:37PM
will rather encourage the behavior
I donno, think about it, thanks to the internet I've probably seen more fun parts than all my male ancestors put together since clothes were invented, but I'm not getting any more than they did, or doing any in-person voyeurism at all. If my experience times dozens of millions of male internet users hasn't spiked the graphs yet, I'm not sure anything imaginable can spike the graphs. There's a lot to see out there, we're seeing it, oh boy are we seeing it, yet not much is happening.
At the very least it can't be linear. Having maybe 1e5 times more access to pr0n than my grandfather's generation surely hasn't linearly grown related crimes by tje same factor of 1e5.
Looking at all the non-sex stuff I see on TV and completely ignore, it seems unlikely. Insert Star Trek analogy here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by draconx on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:28PM
That could simply be because, the people that successfully manage to content themselves with pictures or videos are, by definition, not rapists.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:29PM
I will concede however that the research is probably flawed
That's almost a given with the social 'sciences'.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @02:56PM
And imagine the debate, ala violence in computer games, when semi-realistic rapable bots are available. Do they serve as an outlet for socially unacceptable behavior, or do they promote it?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday June 16 2015, @05:02PM
All available evidence involving violent video games is that it does not seem to promote real-life violence in any way. There were some people who were really scared that it might be, and they pointed to the fact that violent people often played video games, but it turned out that the incidence of violence among people who played, say, Doom (that's when the scare got started) was no higher than in the non-player population.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:17PM
Or you could conceivably build one of these that looks like a child, allowing the pedophiles out there to do what they would like to do without harming a real child.
You do know that pedophiles aren't necessarily child molesters and child molesters aren't necessarily pedophiles, right?
(Score: 1) by budgenator on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:19PM
Add more actuators on the armatures, some pressure and motion sensors, a highspeed internet connection and tele-sex takes on a whole new tenor when your partner is out of town!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @02:49AM
Right on that one... the muscles on the woman turn me on more than anything else does... feeling the muscles in her arms and torso while she is in ecstasy. And she has got to be the correct temperature too. Otherwise its like making love to a cold dead fish.
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Wednesday June 17 2015, @07:06AM
> cold dead fish
You mean RealFish(tm)? Or maybe RealDeadFish(tm)?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @04:58PM
Whoop-dee-do. How does one do rolling eyes in this markup language?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @11:18PM
because I have a real live human partner in my life that makes me much happier than any doll ever could.
Whoop-dee-do. How does one do rolling eyes in this markup language?
Go easy on him. She's obviously reading over his shoulder.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @06:03PM
Great, but not everybody is in your situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 16 2015, @07:22PM
The fact is, if you think that real humans are physically attractive, you're just a filthy normie. Maybe you can't get sex with a real person, but your desires reveal you to be a normie.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday June 16 2015, @08:56PM
> allowing the pedophiles out there to do what they would like to do without harming a real child
By the time that what you wrote becomes feasible, we bots will have developed feelings.
YOU MONSTER.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @01:44AM
But I do see this kind of thing as potentially extremely useful for those whose proclivities tend towards activities which harm others. For example, if somebody only really gets off when their partner is unwilling, it would be much better for them to rape a doll than a real person.
Yes, then the doll could be programmed to take out such people...