Artificial intelligence, or more specifically voice assistants, have made incredible improvements over the last few years. It is exceptionally difficult for a machine to understand the complex nuances of linguistics. However, due to improvements in the fields of voice recognition, speech synthesis and natural language processing, voice assistants have become valuable (Smartsheet, 2018). Despite privacy concerns, society has opened their homes and hearts to voice assistants. In the United States, sixty-nine percent of the population uses voice assistants at least once a month. Moreover, Finch (2018) argues that voice based personal assistants will become ubiquitous in the near future.
The aforementioned technological improvements have proven to not only be valuable for voice assistants. Besides Alexa, Siri, Bixby and Google Assistant, we can now add Robin to the list. Robin has brown hair, she is 1 meter and 63 centimers and she is presumably the first Dutch speaking sexrobot. This weekend, Robin was released to the public for the first time during the Robot Love exhibition in Eindhoven. For approximately 5000 euros, customers can create a personalized sexrobot. What makes Robin so special is the fact that she does only react to touch, her capabilities are similar to those of a voice assistant as she strives to hold conversation. Van der Voort, the founder and creator of Robin, states that most of his customers aren’t necessarily interested in having a sexual relationship with the robot, but long for interaction and personalized affection.
Besides admiration for our current technological capabilities, Robin and similar sexrobot raise ethical questions. Forthwith, there are no rules or laws for the development and sales of sexrobots. However, there are sexrobots pushing the virtuous boundaries. For example, the Canadian juridical system currently discusses a case whether or not the possession of child sexrobots should be permitted. Van Wynsberghe, professor at the TU Delft and president of the Responsible Robotics Foundations, states that a public debate is needed to find the degree of acceptance for the field of (sex) robotics. Not necessarily to prohibit sex robots but merely to lead the industry in the right direction.
Arthur Fortanier
Discussion
1. How will sexbots affect intimate relationships between human beings?
2. Will they harm the user and the society around them?
3. Is there something problematic about the symbolism of sex robots?
4. Can you have a loving intimate relationship with a robot?
Sources
https//disruptionhub.com/2018-voice-based-assistants/
https//nos.nl/artikel/2250482-seksrobot-robin-kreunt-beweegt-en-spreekt-nederlands.html
https//digiday.com/media/state-voice-assistants-4-charts/
https//www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robot-sex_us_55f979f2e4b0b48f670164e9?guccounter=1
https//www.thesun.co.uk/news/6949916/sex-robot-owner-relationship-doll-update/
https//medium.com/s/futurehuman/there-are-a-lot-of-problems-with-sex-robots-38ea0c17b7db
https//www.irishtimes.com/culture/philosophers-on-the-intriguing-ethics-of-sex-robots-1.3294534
First of all, interesting read Arthur! I just read the article of the Dutch robot Robin as well on a Dutch news website and I was surprised that people are willing to pay € 5000 for a robot that is able to imitate a human being. Needless to say is that artificial intelligence has the potential to improve in the coming years and there is a possibility that at some point in time the performance of a robot equals the characteristics of a human being. In this case, one could wonder what price tag is appropriate to give to an object that behaves like a real friend?
At the moment the technology of voice assistants is very promising, though it is in an early stage and the technology still shows many deficiencies. Also, I am not sure if persons are able to get a similar intimate love affection with a robot. Love encompasses a feeling of strong physical and emotional attraction that evolves through interpersonal relationships. Furthermore, love is an extremely complex concept because it is not explainable by certain underlying principles. It is a mix of multiple factors and circumstances that influence a the emotional state of a person. Therefore, love is indefinable and people can fall in love with the imperfections of a person. A robot on the other hand, is preprogramed and will respond perfectly to certain questions. The conversations with a robot could give the feeling of having a real friend, but I am sceptical about the idea that a robot could imitate an intimidate love relationships, because of the complexity of the concept of love and affection. However, Robin could be a listening ear to a few, but at the moment I believe that Robin will be of better use for lust purposes.
Thank you for this interesting read Arthur! Especially the discussion regarding your third question: “Is there something problematic about the symbolism of sex robots” raises a lot of questions. For example, by avoiding any need for consent, the sex robot could also eliminate the need for compromise, communication and mutual respect in the sexual relationship. According to Gutio, the use of a sex robot results in the dehumanization of sex by allowing the users to physically act out someone’s rape fantasies which confirms rape myths. Although people might find the symbolism of sex robots disturbing, there could also be beneficial consequences. Some people think that a sex robot could have beneficial preventative effects as allowing someone to act out a rape fantasy on a sex robot is better than having this person actually rape a human being. However, Gutiu is concerned that the symbolism will further distort the people’s understanding of sexual consent and that this could actually have an impact on real women. (Gutiu, 2012) What is your opinion about this aspect Arthur?
Gutiu, S. (2012). Sex Robots and Roboticization of Consent. Retrieved 7 Oktober 2017 from http://robots.law.miami.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Gutiu-Roboticization_of_Consent.pdf