from the some-topics-are-just-too-weird-for-words dept.
The folks over at CNBC have dug up some experts to explore the question should you have sex with robots:
Should we be having sex with robots?
It's a question that has sparked fierce debate among moralists and the robotics industry. And it turns out, they're all split on what role machines should play in future relationships.
During a discussion at the Web Summit technology conference in Dublin on Wednesday, experts warned about the dangers of getting intimate with robots.
"It's something we should be very concerned about...because if people feel they can have an intimate relationship with a machine, that is saying something serious about how we're experiencing empathy with each other," Kathleen Richardson, senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at the U.K.'s De Montfort University, said during the panel.
The academic, who launched the "campaign against sex robots" earlier this year, added that "we are losing our sense of humanity."
How, exactly, do you get to be an expert on banging robots? Just saying...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:07PM
How about minding your own business? If people want to have sex with their own inanimate objects, they should be able to do so. I don't see the point of an ethics discussion. The fact that some people apparently see this as wrong just shows how authoritarian they are.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:10PM
But but but... putting your gentitals into a plastic mold that's a particular shape is morally WRONG.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:12PM
But but but... putting a plastic mold that's a particular shape into your gentitals is... wait, what?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:25PM
is fun to watch on teh internets!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:49PM
"Authoritarian" is exactly what describes them.
The quote is very telling: "because if people feel they can have an intimate relationship with a machine, that is saying something serious about how we're experiencing empathy with each other". In other words, some people's action would be "saying" something Ms. Richardson does not like to hear, so her proposal is to ban that action.
Banning what she does like to hear is what she thinks as "ethics".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 07 2015, @05:37PM
The quote is very telling: "because if people feel they can have an intimate relationship with a machine, that is saying something serious about how we're experiencing empathy with each other". In other words, some people's action would be "saying" something Ms. Richardson does not like to hear, so her proposal is to ban that action.
Banning what she does[n't] like to hear is what she thinks as "ethics".
I agree, it is instructive how they word it. And it is an almost pathologically narcissistic viewpoint too. We shouldn't get our ethics from people with this kind of trouble upstairs.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:31PM
Many people might say that empathy itself is very fleeing, almost an illusion. For ethics what matters for more than empathy (how you feel) is behavior (how you act). How do you treat people? Do you force them to engage in things they are not enthusiastic about? If they aren't enthusiastic about what you want them to do, do you attempt to motivate them with negative behaviors like demands, disrespectful judgments, and anger? Do you offer them unsolicited advice, telling them how to behave? If so, you aren't treating people very thoughtfully, in my opinion. But if you can avoid treating people like this you have learned to act in a way that is highly ethical and beneficial for them as well as yourself - and you can do that even if you don't feel empathy.
So, when it comes to sex with robots, is it causing people to mistreat me? If not, then the argument that it is affecting their empathy falls very flat with me and I have no business interfering with their choices. There's always been an argument to make that solo sexual activity can tend to make the real thing less likely or less fulfilling, but I wouldn't toss that unsolicited advice toward anybody unless it were, well, solicited.
As for married people, I would say that pretty much everything married people do affects each other, and I know for a fact that my wife would not be enthusiastic about me having sex with robots because it would be extremely hurtful and offensive to her. The fact is I'm probably not really very empathetic about that - I can't imagine what that would feel like for her and I don't feel anything like that, so I am utterly, totally incapable of empathy about it. But I know that this kind of thing would in fact hurt her very much, so I would avoid this kind of activity at all costs since for us marriage is a voluntary relationship where we agree to give each other an extraordinary level of care that we wouldn't give to anyone else. And in fact my wife would draw the line at such behavior on my part and would separate from me and eventually divorce if it continued. And if a woman's husband was doing this and asked her our opinion, that's what we would advise her to do. But you don't need a law for that or a bunch of moral shaming.
But that is just our marriage. Other people are not married to me or my wife - it's not going to affect us the way we can affect each other, so what business would we have lecturing or worse legislating what other people do?
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:48PM
So, when it comes to sex with robots, is it causing people to mistreat me? If not, then the argument that it is affecting their empathy falls very flat with me and I have no business interfering with their choices.
The idea that having sex with robots will somehow reduce someone's empathy is pure nonsense. It removes a person's sense of responsibility ("It's not my fault I don't have empathy! It's all the fault of that inanimate robot!") and ignores the fact that what they are dealing with are inanimate objects and not real people, so there is no logical connection between empathy felt for a robot and empathy felt for a person. You can't place blame on the activity of having sex with robots, anyway, because it doesn't directly cause anything to happen, if it has any such effect at all.
There's always been an argument to make that solo sexual activity can tend to make the real thing less likely or less fulfilling
That argument has always been foolish. It's someone's business whether they want to have sex with others or not. If they want to masturbate alone, that's up to them. And plenty of people masturbate and have relationships with others.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Saturday November 07 2015, @11:47PM
It's someone's business whether they want to have sex with others or not. If they want to masturbate alone, that's up to them.
Certainly it is, but I don't think that has any bearing on that argument. Just because something might have negative side effects for some people is no reason that it isn't their business.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:24AM
Well, I meant that some people do not want relationships with others, so not having the "real thing" is not actually a negative side effect even if such a side effect exists.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by isostatic on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:14PM
But where does it stop?
Sex with inanimate objects?
Sex with dead pigs head?
Sex with someone of the same sex?
Only ONE of these is authorised by the right wing
(Score: 3, Insightful) by inertnet on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:47PM
Exactly, this should be an individual freedom that's nobody else's business.
Besides, this is something for people that don't want a meaningful relationship with a partner, or to have a family and raise children. So those things are left to people who actually choose to live like that. I can only see benefits here.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:21PM
Not wanting to reproduce wouldn't in itself make a person more inclined to screw robots — a combination of birth control with a genuinely childfree partner is enough for that, if permanent measures aren't an option.
(Of course, if a person has a deep-seated conviction that the opposite sex is full of cheaters out to get him/her, *that* would make them more likely to favor a robotic partner, but that's a whole other issue entirely.)
(Score: 2) by naubol on Monday November 09 2015, @01:20PM
Oh, I don't think I could have said it better. Sex robots are inevitable, and the "sticky issues" may make for another boring round of pseudo-philosophical surprise that humans have an internal model of reality that isn't reliable. If anything, sex with robots is consistent with the classic idea of what being human is, a flexible, adaptable, horny creature that has consistently manipulated her environment to whatever whims she has.
That our evolutionary adaptation of general intelligence may eventually cause us to be selected against isn't a violation of our nature. In fact, nothing we do is a violation of our nature because that would be impossible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:13PM
Probably a large dildo collection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @01:56PM
Isn't art a voyeuristic sex act .. mostly?
Do some people buy a "useless" air cooled motorcycle just because it stimulates
that prostate gland so nicely even if it overheats quickly and doesn't even go that fast?
Girl didn't get laid, fell in love with chocolate instead?
I think people have been "having sex(*)" with non-human objects since time immortal ^_^
(*) depends on definition of "having sex" i suppose.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 07 2015, @07:29PM
250 yo dildo: http://www.news.com.au/technology/science/leather-sex-toy-from-the-18th-century-is-discovered-by-archaeologists-in-poland/story-fnjwl1aw-1227305937346 [news.com.au]
4k-6k yo dildo: http://www.livescience.com/9971-stone-age-carving-ancient-dildo.html [livescience.com]
28k yo dildo: http://metro.co.uk/2015/01/15/batteries-not-included-28000-year-old-stone-dildo-on-show-in-sex-exhibit-5022809/ [metro.co.uk]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:04PM
A question to men: What ratio of men do you think would bother to date women if sex bots were available at an affordable price, say, the price of an expensive PC? How many men would buy one at home as soon as he moved out of his family's house?
Note that I am NOT trying to say no one would get married ever. I can imagine any man may still want to marry someone if he encountered someone he truly loved.
However, if most men's sexual desire can be satisfied whenever he wanted, with a sex bot that can be made to look, feel and behave (in a limited way) like any type of girl he liked, I would think most women would suddenly find themselves ignored by most men in most cases, especially when she started behaving like a b*tch, or trying to use her looks to her advantage.
Until now, all the porn and sex toys available still cannot compare to the real thing (at least to most men), but when the sex bot is here, it will get better, and eventually women will lose their hard-wired hold on men. That terrifies them, and hence the outcry to ban it.
If you don't believe that, ask why aren't there any man crusading against fake dildos for women.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:31PM
Haven't heard of masturbation? It's a lot cheaper than paying for a date or going to a bar and trying to get laid.
People can masturbate and they still get married. Until robots can provide proper companionship and children, I don't think there's any reasonable worry about this being a big problem. There's more than enough people collectively having children to assure that the species doesn't go extinct. We could easily afford to have the population decrease to 2bn or less, provided it didn't happen all at once.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 07 2015, @07:37PM
Right. And you can go outside and pick a stick up from the ground and play war pretending that it is rifle and yelling "da-da-da-da-da-da-da" at your friend and hoping he falls down. Why would first-person-shooter video games ever make nickel when everyone has access to sticks for free and most people can say "bang"? Apply those conclusions to masturbation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:18PM
Because the real world is ugly and boring, which is the same reason that I simply masturbate. Just as I am not sexually attracted to garbage cans, I am not sexually attracted to real people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @04:12AM
My feeling is that I am asking a lot from a woman to have sex with her. So much so that women expect payment for it, just as I expect payment for doing something I do not like to do.
If I can offload that duty onto a machine, then as far as I am concerned it relieves the woman of having to do this for a man just as a washing machine frees her from the tedium of washing clothes.
What it means is that the time I can spend with a woman would then be quality time, not time spent satiating my glands at her expense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:20PM
Wha??
Off on a tangent we go!!!
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Sunday November 08 2015, @11:23AM
Autoerotic acts are a bit different than tantric ecstasy. If these bots could provide that...
(Score: 1) by Francis on Sunday November 08 2015, @04:04PM
Which they can't because you can't do tantra without a ton of work. A robot isn't likely to ever be able to do something like that. Most people will never be able to do that because of the years or work it takes before that point.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Wednesday November 11 2015, @08:43PM
they can't because you can't do tantra without a ton of work
I can pop some acid and when happening in the right conditions, all of the work happens by itself (with the necessary effort) and the experience is divine.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday November 11 2015, @10:33PM
No, you can't. Drugs are bad 'mkay.
I get freaking tired of people saying bullshit like that. That the drugs are helping them to be creative or that they're a substitute for legitimate spiritual development. Yes, some cultures used things like peyote at times for ceremonial purposes, but it was never a replacement for spiritual growth or work. It was a tool used within a framework.
(Score: 2) by Geotti on Friday November 13 2015, @12:10AM
And I get tired of people insisting that you have to rape your mental capacities by "training hard for a lifetime" or submit to some dubious guru or whatnot to achieve epiphany instead of finding your own way.
it was never a replacement for spiritual growth or work.
We definitely agree on this point. And I didn't say acid's not a tool for spiritual development, just like a hammer is for getting a nail in the wall.
Yes, years of meditative training is a tool too, and the experience might be more sustainable if you so desire, but it's also possible to sustain the experience using other tools. (Unfortunately, you usually end up being called a schizophrenic in western cultures. ;) )
Quite a lot of cultures use entheogens as a tool, including in Tantra:
A number of techniques (sadhana) are used as aids for meditation and achieving spiritual power:[...]
Use of taboo substances such as alcohol, cannabis, meat and other entheogens.[...]
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tantra#Sadhanas)
Mh'key? good.
some cultures used things like peyote at times for ceremonial purposes
(You expose your origin with this statement.) All over the world people (i.e. priests, shamans, etc.) used whatever was available to them. In Latin America san pedro and peyote was used (amongst others) but there's also agaric -to come back to the Indian area-, which was possibly the soma [wikipedia.org] of the Rig Veda, but definitely used ritualistically northwards towards Siberia.
No, you can't.
How the fuck do you know? I know what I've experienced, friend. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @06:33PM
I'll buy one. The amount of sex I get for the tens of thousands I pay for upkeep of the medical issues and insurance issues and oh no work was hard issues and oh no kids are in the lawn issue and...
I wouldn't want to say fuck that because she says no anyway.
(Score: 3, Funny) by davester666 on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:23PM
Where do you live? I would like to request the police and/or child welfare to drop by to check out your "kids are in the lawn".
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:00PM
It's definitely not zero, because:
1. A lot of men would like to be fathers.
2. A lot of men look for more than just sex in their intimate relationships.
To believe that sexbots would eliminate all attempts by men to date women is to ignore the literally centuries of art and literature that demonstrates that men are quite capable of love, even downright selfless love, even without sex.
I get the impression you are looking at dating as a transaction where the man buys the woman stuff and the woman is supposed to put out in return. If so, you're doing it wrong: The end result of that kind of dating is that you'll end up with women who are into your money, not into you. If you want that, you should be looking for a prostitute instead of a date.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @11:21PM
You are totally correct about dating not being a transaction. But dating and marriage are totally different. Marriage is about property -- yeah there's all the Hollywood Shakespeare Harlequin stuff poisoning our cultural understanding of marriage, but if you look at divorce laws you'll understand that marriage is purely and solely about property. If you choose your spouse incorrectly, you've just agreed to pay that spouse half of everything you earn, and maybe more on an ongoing basis just for the privilege of being single. If you win the marriage lottery, great. But for those who don't, even if the sex-bot cost $100k or more, it looks like a bargain and smart choice in hindsight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:08PM
What does marriage have to do with anything? I can be in a lifelong relationship with someone without ever getting married. Marriage is some dumb social ritual with magical thinking and undeserved legal benefits attached to it; nothing more. It has little to do with love.
Until now, all the porn and sex toys available still cannot compare to the real thing
The real thing is disgusting because real people are ugly, both physically and mentally. Therefore, pornography featuring real people has the same problem, so it is also worthless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:00AM
The real thing is disgusting because real people are ugly, both physically and mentally. Therefore, pornography featuring real people has the same problem, so it is also worthless.
I was surprised the first few times I saw it . . . but on porn shoots that have an extra 15 minutes before the main show, typically have the girl receiving professionally applied makeup to their face. Therefore, pornography featuring real people doesn't always have the same problem, because some directors are willing to spend hundreds of dollars on makeup and clothing per shoot, to make even a disgusting bitch, look pretty for an hour.
(Score: 3, Informative) by isostatic on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:11PM
How sad your life may be if the only women you know are the ones that use looks and bitchyness. Maybe when you leave high school things will get better, perhaps a good start would be for you to start thinking of women as people rather than "things to have sex with".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:21PM
But what if someone isn't interested in relationships and are only interested in sex? That is just their preference and doesn't mean they view others only as objects.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:44PM
In which case buy a sex bot. Or a rampant rabbit. Or a real doll. Or a flashlight. Or a dildo. Or something from fuckingmachines.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @11:32PM
Your comment is a little smug and it assumes that the only reason a person would choose a sexbot is because he is a misogynist, and that assumes that all women will be decent partners if you marry them. Sometimes though, a person can treat people in general, and intimate partners, with great respect, kindness, etc., only to find that after marriage repressed traits in the partner come to the fore. Like a complete refusal to work, scathing unwarranted unrelenting criticism, weird OCD behaviors that make coming home an anxiety filled daily event because there's no telling what random thing will cause a blowout. And then you discover that the only way to be free, is to lose half of everything you ever made and pay thousands/month into the future for who knows how long.
Are all women like that? Obviously not. But when you assume that the only reason people don't have good relationships is because they are dicks, you fail to account for the fact that there women out there who are really horrid, and if you get stuck with one, life really fucking sucks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:12PM
There is a large difference between intimacy and sex. People don't only have sex with people they are intimate with and there probably aren't very many people that have an intimate relationship with a dildo, pocket pussy, showerhead, etc.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:36PM
I love my linux, my gnu, my arch, my i3wm... i'm not much good with people: my wife doesn't understand me half the time, some people just ANNOY the HELLL out of me.
My 'setup' (dual monitor) and i get along wonderfully.
Do i have an intimate relationship with my 'setup'? It doesn't wear a blue dress, so i guess you'd have to define intimate (i did not have sexual relations with that blue dress!!!).
Would my life be easier with a realistic 'Barbie' doll? HELL YES!!!
Could intimacy (a physical and mental closeness) be believed by me? I might be able to fake it in order to just get on in my life (women can be completely bamboozling to me): I mean, i DO have a physical and mental closeness with my 'setup' (when i get behind my computer, i relax completely, i feel mentally 'pumped', i can be completely 'into' it).
Would it be better? Could i make it be just as nice?
That, Watson, is the question...
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @07:44PM
People also don't always have sex with people they are intimate with, unless they have a fetish for incest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @02:53PM
Until the robot starts saying things like, "Isn't it about you painted the house?"
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:40PM
Indeed that #fdfef0 on the walk looks terribly dated
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:41PM
What exactly are the anti-sex robot crowd afraid of? That people will prefer robots to each other, and we'll stop having children, and go extinct? Or, that we'll stop caring about each other, which will lead to wars, and we'll go extinct that way? Is it that sex should remain mysterious until marriage, that virginity and innocence (aka ignorance) are precious? Or is it plain fear of the new and unknown? What's to know about it? No worrying about catching a disease or starting a pregnancy, getting roped into a shotgun wedding or having to get past the anti-abortion fanatics on the way to an abortion clinic, no having to bother with contraceptives... sounds like a winner!
If some people weren't so uptight about everything to do with sex, trying their damndest to keep their own children in the dark, the world would be a better place. I think that's what's behind this controversy. No one thinks twice about robots doing chores around the house. Sex though, watch out! Sex ed class was pathetic, talking all around the subject without ever telling the high school students what it is like, so that the only way to really learn was to do it. Unintended pregnancies are a big problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:49PM
I think one concern is that if machine intelligence advances enough, robots will have rights.
If that is the case, having sex with a "dumb" robot may be considered rape since they can not consent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @03:56PM
Then the robots might prefer each other and exchange genetic information when they mate.
Uh oh, I just gave away the big idea for my screenplay.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday November 07 2015, @07:06PM
Just call it R.U.R.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @05:24PM
Well the female ones are afraid that when it comes between their lackluster personality vs a sex robot a man might take the robot over their harpy attitude.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Gaaark on Saturday November 07 2015, @05:35PM
and does this battery make me look fat? :)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 07 2015, @05:53PM
What exactly are the anti-sex robot crowd afraid of?
Just look at movies like AI. Humanity goes into a fertility nosedive and starts running robot fight arenas. Then a few thousand years later after global cooling hits, the robots complain that there's no more humans around to mother - even though they not only have the tech to breed a zillion humans from residual human cells, they can reincarnate people by name only thousands of years after they die.
Basically, this crowd has this stereotype fantasy that you need a couple of people, usually a mommy and daddy, to raise kids and if you deviate from this formula in any way (other than the approved variations which expand in number and extent with each generation), bad things happen like the extinction of people - which is a bad thing even when the people dying off are all acting like evil idiots.
Basically, the outspoken complainers have a small comfort zone and they want everyone to stay in that small comfort zone.
My view on this, let's find out for ourselves what works and what doesn't rather than depending on a bunch of idiots to tell us what to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @06:37PM
Oh, the problem is that someone can't hold power over you for having pleasurable sex with someone, in or out of marriage. That someone typically being robed men of some kind, preferably also of their belief system. It is easier to oppress if the message is the same to all of those being oppressed. Otherwise, you are an abomination of some kind; there's a scoring system with names and general platitudes of what it takes to be a good person. We can find a way to make sure you have something wrong with you.
Also, if you are very much unlike the others already cowed into service, then you are unclean and need righteous salvation through oppression. Your eternal reward comes later, but for now, 10% tithe monthly.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:08PM
Well, maybe they are actually prostitutes and/or pimps, and fear that the robots will take away their business. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @06:22PM
I can see it now. Sexbots running breeding programs to produce humans that they find more desirable. What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:34PM
This is a very old issue. On Cyprus in ancient times, a guy named Pygmalion carved a "perfect woman" out of ivory, after he had bad experience with promiscuous women reviewing his video game. He prayed to Aphrodite, and she turned the statue into a real woman. George Bernard Shaw's play of the same name is based on this, and the film "My Fair Lady" was based on the play. But there is more. Alchemists tried to create a small human, a homonculus, or a mandragora, not to mention Pinnoccio who became a real boy, of the golem of Medieval Jewish alchemy. And recently, the film "Ex Machina" was dealing with the same meme. It does give us some idea of what the ethical issue is.
People who want to create people for their own purposes are unethical. They want slaves, but, you know, slavery is kind of out of style. And even when slavery was acceptable, these people wanted to improve the humans they own. Except, of course, that the "improvements" are deformation of humanity that result from the creator's inability to deal with other people. The real problem, as brought up above, and the major theme of "Ex Machina", is that if you create something close enough to human to, um, satisfy, we enter into the uncanny valley, and lose control or even are destroyed by the creation. Frankenstein sex-bots, anyone?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday November 07 2015, @08:41PM
Blame Disney. It wasn't his nose that grows.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:24PM
That's why I said not to mention it.
(Score: 2) by t-3 on Sunday November 08 2015, @12:50AM
I do but think sentient ai is either necessary or desirable.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday November 08 2015, @01:08AM
A a Homonculus and a Mandragora are two completely different things, the homonculus was an attempt to prove the Preformationist theory [wikipedia.org] which believed a sperm was a teeny tiny fully formed human that need only the correct conditions to grow, which a Mandragora is a doll given by the devil [wikipedia.org] to be consulted when they need answers, similar to a familiar.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday November 08 2015, @02:10AM
Does it bother anyone besides me that Hairyfeet should know this? Thanks for the clarification, Hairy!
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday November 08 2015, @03:43AM
Is it so shocking that I like to read about the history of science and technology? Man has had a lot of dead ends and bad theories and until just recently science was more associated with "magic" than with verifiable proofs.
If you want to see just how many twists and turns there are along the way to knowledge a great video to start with is the race for absolute zero [youtube.com], the winding road that came with our understanding of what cold is and how it actually works is quite fascinating.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday November 10 2015, @02:47PM
>People who want to create people for their own purposes are unethical. They want slaves
I think this is wrong. What if I want to create a daughter or a son, but I don't want to be married and I cannot adopt? Is that unethical? Is my "child" a slave?
Human relationship is all about using each other for our own purposes; that is not inherently unethical. It may seem cold, but even friends and family are used selfishly for emotional and personal support. It's a mutually beneficial relationship.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2015, @10:31PM
/article.pl?sid=15/09/16/1740201 [soylentnews.org]
/article.pl?sid=15/09/22/2125230 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:10AM
How, exactly, do you get to be an expert on banging robots? Just saying...
I wouldn't call myself an *expert*, but I learned everything I know on the subject from late-night documentaries [youtube.com] on the subject.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Sunday November 08 2015, @09:13AM
Don't Date Robots!!!! [vimeo.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday November 08 2015, @03:05PM
There is no substitute for real sex, wherein both partners are into it and enjoying each other. The rush during and satisfaction afterward are irreplaceable. Having sex with a robot would only ever be masturbation because it could never truly reciprocate on an emotional level. As such, who cares what anyone does with one?
Washington DC delenda est.