Would You Have Sex With A Robot?

Well, what’s she look like?

I ran across this article, which is predicting we will start having sex with robots within 5 years, and marriage to robots by 2050. This article is funny and scary at the same time.

Funny

In 2006, Henrik Christensen, founder of the European Robotics Research Network, predicted that people will be having sex with robots within five years, and Levy thinks that’s quite likely. There are companies that already sell realistic sex dolls, “and it’s just a matter of adding some electronics to them to add some vibration,” he said…

That’s the robot I want. This is an untapped market!

On the question of bringing a robot into an existing relationship:

“But who knows, maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying, ‘Darling, not tonight, I have a headache,’ you could get ‘Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?’”

If the guy’s got his sex robot, and the girl has the robot that does the housework, who needs marriage? Or is it the guy that needs the robot that does all the housework, and the woman who needs a high-performance, piston-powered, robot sex machine? I’m confused. It sounds like I’m lucky (?) that I got married when I did, instead of waiting 50 years…

The best part of the article is when it suggests that people could marry robots when those people might otherwise have problems finding a parter - for example, when someone is “just plain ugly.” There’s some scientific theory for ya. I wonder if there will be an Ugliness scale, sorta like the Richter scale, to determine if someone is allowed to marry a robot? I can see it now: “I’m sorry, sir, you’re only a 1.0. Please find a real person.” And then someone else: “Whoah, you’re off the charts! Here’s our selection of 2.1 models. You’ll discover an array of features…”

Scary

I don’t even want to think about this:

For instance, robot sex could provide an outlet for criminal sexual urges. “If you have pedophiles and you let them use a robotic child, will that reduce the incidence of them abusing real children, or will it increase it?”

Whether you’re grossed out or intrigued by some of the issues this article raises, I definitely think this topic of human-machine interaction, and all the complications associated with it, is going to surface sooner or later. Technology will race along just slightly faster than our ability to deal with the questions it raises.

For example, what will happen to all the vibrator manufacturers when more sophisticated robots begin to replace them?

“There’s a real potential for intimacy here, where humans become psychologically and emotionally attached to these devices in ways we wouldn’t to a vibrator.”