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?
(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.