Can you imagine yourself having sex with a robot? While this idea might seems crazy for most of us, many serious companies from all around the world are working these days on creating A.I. humanoid robots, which purpose is to provide sexual satisfaction.
There is already a heated social debate around this new innovation: those who oppose claim that the creation of human-like sex robots will increase the objectification of women and deteriorate people with all sorts of paraphilic disorders. Those who support claim that these robots are just an object - like a vibrator, and everyone has a right to do what they like privately.
One thing is for sure - for better or worse, these robots are going to be a part of our life, and the sex of the future is going to be very different than what we know.
The sex-tech industry
Sex is one of men's basic needs. Since ancient time, people have been obsessed with it and have looked for more ways to experience it. This constant, intense passion is the reason why sex is the most innovative industry: prostitution for example, is considered to be "the world's oldest profession", vibrators were the first electrical household goods ever sold (about 9 years before the first vacuum cleaners were sold), home videos were used initially mainly for porn consumption, and nowadays about 30% of the internet content is porn.
Where there is a lot of passion, there is usually a lot of money. The worldwide revenue of the sex-tech industry is estimated to be around $30 billion. If this isn't enough, the worldwide prostitution revenue estimated to be around $186 billion! With these numbers it was always only a matter of time before someone comes up with the idea of creating a sex-robot.
The rise of the sex machine
Sexbots are human-like robots with artificial intelligence, programmed to give sexual pleasure. Since there is no accurate distinction between sexbots and sophisticated sex dolls, it's hard to identify specifically which is the world's first sex robot, and so many are trying to claim this title.
Samantha is a human-like robot with dark brown hair, green eyes and a super model body. Its hips, shoulders, mouth and vagina are covered with sensors that respond to human touch, and according to its inventors, Mr. Arran Squire and Dr. Sergi Santos, Samantha is capable of imitating an orgasm when touched in the right way. Two sex shops in the UK are already selling this product for £3,500 ($4,713), and according to its manufacturer, Synthea Amatus, they can't meet the demand.
Not everyone is impressed by Samantha. "I would very strongly argue against those qualifying as sex robots - a talking doll is more of an accurate description...” said Mat McMullin, the creator of the Harmony - a competitor sex robot that's planned to be launched by the end of this year.
Harmony is a much more sophisticated: it has facial expressions and its mouth is in sync with the audio it produces. It can be customized with 18 different personality traits, and its creator claims that it has an artificial intelligence that will “evolve” to the point where it seems “that the doll is actually talking to you". Its price will be around $10,000.
Beside Samanta and Harmony, dozens of firms around the world are racing to be the first to take over this newly born domain including True Companion, Eden Robotics and many more. All of them offer pretty much the same concept - for a few thousand dollars you will get a sexually attractive robot with some degree of artificial intelligence, that you can do with it whatever you like.
The target audience Sexbots have a variety of potential users: it can function as a sexual surrogate in order to help people with sexual aversion, it can provide sexual relief for people who can't obtain it naturally for all sort of reasons, and some say that these robots can provide some sort of sublimation for potential rapists and pedophiles in a way that will prevent them from hurting real people.
But above all, the potential users of these robots are simply ordinary men. A recent study conducted among 263 straight males at the age of 18 to 67 found that 40.3% of them could imagine using a sex robot within the next five years.
At present, women are not considered to be a part of the target audience. While there are some companies that plan to manufacture male versions of these sexbot, they are destined mostly for the gay community. It is noteworthy that the vast majority of male prostitution clients are also male.
In a study about the sex habits of straight woman at the U.S., more than half of the women said spending time to build arousal, having a partner who knows what they like and emotional intimacy contributed to better orgasms. Prostitutes and robots can't really give you an emotional intimacy. Well, at least for now.
The social debate has just bagan
Many people are disturbed by this new development. Kathleen Richardson, a senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in Leicester and Erik Brilling, an associate senior lecturer in informatics from the University of Skövde in Sweden are leading a campaign against sex robots.
They argue that sex robots would further increase the perceived inferiority of women and will continue to justify their use as sex objects, and that the development of sex robots will further reduce human empathy that can only be developed by an experience of mutual relationship. The campaign has called on scientists and roboticists to refuse to help with the development of sex bots, by withholding code, hardware and ideas.
Noel Sharkey and Aimee van Wynsberghe of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics recently released a consultation report about the social significance of the sex robots. In this report they mention that these robots could lead to a form of social isolation, and that giving some people the option to live out their darkest fantasies with sex robots could have a pernicious effect on society and societal norms and create more danger for the vulnerable.
Conversely, many others believe that these sexbots are evidently development in the technological age we are living in. Kate Devlin, a lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, and an expert in sex robotics suggests that "maybe it's time to literally embrace the robots".
There is no doubt that the development of sexbots brings with it some interesting ethical questions: does having sex with a sexbot is considered cheating? Is it okay to have sex with a sexbot in a form of a juvenile? If someone is having sex with a robot without that robot's consent - is this considered to be a rape? As strange as is sounds, someday we will have to answer these questions.
The next version of sexbots When you examine all the different sex robots that are being developed today, none of them actually look and feel like real people. There is still a long way before we will see an actual human-like robot, like the one shown in the movie Ex Machina or the television series Westworld.
Walking for example, is considered to be the most challenging and fundamental feature for developers of human-like robots. Its components are the most expensive, and most demanding in terms of battery power. This is the reason why all of today's sex robots do not possess this ability.
Within time we can expect these these robots to have full human physical abilities. Moverover, the AI abilities of the robots, which are already quite impressive, are expected to improve significantly, thus allowing us to be more emotionally connected to those robots.
But there is even more: the sexbots of the future will be able to read our mind and fulfill fantasies that we didn't even realize we had. They will have a growing database of detailed function that give people sexual pleasure, and like in many other cases of AI using big data, it could constantly analyze it and improve its sexual algorithm.
While all of today's sexbots look like female porn models, the sexbots of the future will come in all kind of shapes and sizes and some of them may not even look like human beings at all. Think about a sexbot in the shape of a Japanese magna character, an elvish fantasy character, or even a hybrid mythological god - all of them could be you sex partner in the future.
Maybe not only sex The movie "Her" from from 2013 presented a love story between a human being and an AI computer. In real life, there are some cases of people marrying their VR girlfriend or their robot girlfriend but these are still very rare.
However, in a world where computers will become more and more intelligent, there is a good chance that the phenomenon of people falling in love with a computer will expand - especially if the computer will reside of a robot that looks just like a real, good looking person.
About a year ago, at the "Love and Sex with Robots” conference that took place at Art Goldsmith University in London, David Levy, author of a book on human-robot love, predicted that human-robot marriages would be legal by 2050.
"That might seem outrageous because it’s only 35 years away. But 35 years ago people thought homosexual marriage was outrageous. Until the 1970s, some states didn’t allow white and black people to marry each other. Society does progress and change very rapidly...”
In conclusion
The social debate around these robots has just begun and in the next few years it's going to be very interesting to see how it evolves. Both sides seem to have persuasive arguments and this topic is very... sexy, if you'll pardon the pun.
Eventually we can expect some regulation around this product but it's very hard to believe it will be totally banned. History has shown that money almost always prevails, and this industry has a lot of money in it.
Who knows, maybe the love story between human beings and robots will start with sex but will evolve to something much deeper.