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The truth about sex robots
- ekianjo 11y ago> In two recent movies, Her and Ex Machina, filmmakers explored an intriguing concept: whether humans will fall in love with and want to have sex with AI or robots. Never mind Ghost in the Shell throwing that idea about, like, 20 years ago already. It's always fun to be see folks late to the party.
- MikeNomad 11y agoYep. And two of Gibson's Bridge Triology. Most notably, Idoru.
- stuxnet79 11y agoDidn't Rei Toei first appear in Virtual Light? In Virtual Light I seem to remember Rydell driving in downtown LA at night and getting distracted by a hologram of a naked East-Asian looking woman - who would later turn out to be Rei Toei.
- MikeNomad 11y agoYou are probably correct. I remember so little abut VL. Looks like it's time for a re-read...
- valarauca1 11y agoOr we could talk about how TNG (Star Trek) was discussing Holodeck Sickness from people so desperately trying to escape reality.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoOr Data's girlfriend Tasha Yar.
- grimgrin 11y agoThe author went as far back as Pygmalion [1913], where Eliza fell in love with a statue that came to life.
- venomsnake 11y agoI thought it was 1913 BC Pygmalion. The play.
- lazyant 11y ago"In Ovid's narrative, Pygmalion was a Cypriot sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. According to Ovid, after seeing the Propoetides he was "not interested in women", but his statue was so fair and realistic that he fell in love with it." Ovid lived over 2,000 years ago.
- gweinberg 11y agoEliza is the statue. Henry Higgens is Pygmaliopn.
- grimgrin 11y agoOK yes well I was wrong in about every way possible. The play is from 1913 AD: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(play) But it is based on a Greek mythological character from over 2,000 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(mythology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_(mythology) Also Eliza is the statue. Thanks for pointing out my errors.
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- soared 11y agoThe next sentence: > Of course, this isn’t the first time people have lusted after artificial human entities Stop being overly pedantic. You'd be better off criticizing the first picture, which is actually two robots, not a human and a robot.
- ilamont 11y agoI think Sci-fi/Fantasy authors have been interested in this topic for many years ... for instance, Piers Anthony's Xanth series, starting in the 70s.
- greggman 11y agoBlade Runner (1982) had a pleasure android long before Ghost in the Shell and there's several Sci-Fi stories that had them before then. Here's one from (1938) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_O%27Loy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_O%27Loy
- antod 11y agoIf Hollywood is anything to go on, it looks like the time for sex robots is practically upon us. Blade Runner was set in 2019, and Cherry 2000 was set in 2017.
- mentos 11y agoStepping stone is VR/AR with tracked toys
- dhimes 11y agoI got such a weird feeling reading that. Happy Valentine's Day!
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoThere's a market for every toy. Robot feels weird, sounds funny, looks creepy? Sell to the weird funny creepy crowd.
- AznHisoka 11y agoJust because something looks creepy doesn't mean the target buyer is creepy.
- a5seo 11y agoHas this author ever heard of 'minimum viable product?' I doubt the lack of nanotech to create perfect artficial skin (or many of the other features mentioned) are going to hold this back.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoExactly! This is a subject dominated by imagination and fantasy. All that is needed is a spark. Arguably, the robot should be quite different from a real human, because they are available already and at a reasonable price.
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- franciscop 11y agoI think the post misses completely the point of technology replacing humans. Like autonomous cars, sex robots will be viable when they are better than the alternative. And for many people, this means better than nothing/sex toys. They don't need to be perfect as it suggests.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoOr even, more fantasy and less reality. The measurements of a sex robot don't have to be even close to plausible.
- venomsnake 11y agoOr the general number/location of appendixes and orifices.
- nugget 11y agoSpot on . . . to borrow from Thoreau, ''the mass of men lead [sex] lives of quiet desperation''. (As a man, I'm more familiar with the male perspective.) I think even a crude early version of a sex robot that males could interact with at home would revolutionize society with all sorts of consequences to romantic relationships, birth rates, social development, and so on. Combine the physical manipulations with AI and VR and I think it will be as or more important than developments like self driving cars and 1 hour drone deliveries.
- kilroy123 11y agoBut only if the cost was very low. Right now this kind of product exists but is way too much for most men: https://www.realdoll.com https://www.realdoll.com [NSFW] Personally, I would not be interested unless the robot was indistinguishable from a real human.
- greggman 11y agoIsn't that already happening? Not to pick on the Japanese in particular but it's low-hanging fruit search wise https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&es_th=1&ie=UTF-8#q=japanese%20men%20not%20interesting%20in%20sex&es_th=1 https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...
- merb 11y agoWhat people never learn, human intelligence is not learning by analyzing and doing it better. human intelligence means actually doing something which could never be calculated and which could be a total mess, however it could still be the right thing. Current AI's will learn, but they will learn with their input, which is something humans don't do, their thinking is abstract.
- woodman 11y agoYour description of "human intelligence" sounds more like a bounded random number generator. Also, your thinking is restricted by sensory input - just like the AI.
- upofadown 11y agoUnless you get the pheromones and skin chemistry right there really isn't any point.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoThat's not fair! Lots of sex toys sell today. Very very few of them get that right. In fact, all they have to be is soft and lubricatable.
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- lifeisstillgood 11y agoOddly I am reminded of a comment about New Mexico. There the ratio of non-imprisoned men to women is something like 90:100 in the non-White community, and so apparently women are more Likely to acquiesce to the sort of male demands you can imagine - so less marriage, more polyamory, and apparently more sex more frequently. (I am now racking my brains for a reference - it could be Tim Harford?) The point being, that real people competing against a free "good enough" alternative are going to be the unusual example of economic Uberisation
- tbeutel 11y agoA robot with a self-cleaning feature would make me more likely to use it.
- mchahn 11y ago> A robot with a self-cleaning feature would make me more likely to use it. Or better yet, a house-cleaning feature (male or female).
- DrScump 11y agoFor a sarcastic view on the concept, check out "Robot Girl" by Was (not Was)... here's an SNL performance from 1989. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03LVC_r9gJE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03LVC_r9gJE (RG starts at about 1:45)
- echlebek 11y ago> Some worry sex robots might hurt already marginalised sex workers I doubt that anyone actually worries about this.