Sex Robot Dolls - What do they say about humans?

[Sinapse]

So I came across this article posted in a Facebook group I'm a part of (which is otherwise totally unrelated to the topic).

Essentially, it describes a sex doll which was damaged from extreme groping at some sort of conference. The comments in the group brought up some interesting thoughts which I thought I'd share here and solicit some opinions and hopefully an interesting debate.

Someone commented that some robotic dolls have been programmed to be "frigid" or resist advances from men - basically a "rape doll". Someone else mentioned that children dolls are also being created. Which raises some moral questions:

-Are sex dolls good, bad, or neutral?
-Can a doll be raped?
-Does having dolls to enact taboo fantasies (such as rape or pedophoelia) help people who might otherwise commit those crimes on real people, or are they something society should worry about which perhaps leads to more of that behavior in real life? In other words, horse or carriage - are they a symptom or a problem?
-What is the line for sexual fantasies (for dolls, and other content such as anime, video games, etc)? Is there a thing as "too far" and if so, where is it and how should it be policed?

Cheers
PS - If you haven't watched the recent Westworld series, I highly recommend it. It essentially deals with this topic, although with much more emphasis on consciousness and singularity than this particular topic.

 

[TokyoJoeblow]

As twisted as it is, I truly believe these dolls will help a lot of lonely/even rapey type men. Better that they are doing all that to a doll than a real person.

By the way, Westworld is a really cool show!

 

[AMcguyver]

As technology advances every year though, we are eventually going to get to a point where this is going to get much more difficult to justify/moralize. Westworld, Blade Runner, etc. are science fiction for now, but someday we might be facing this:

 

[Wwanderer]

I didn't even know that sex robots talk about humans... behind our backs I assume.

-Ww

 

[e-smile]

1-Are sex dolls good, bad, or neutral?
2-Can a doll be raped?
3-Does having dolls to enact taboo fantasies (such as rape or pedophoelia) help people who might otherwise commit those crimes on real people, or are they something society should worry about which perhaps leads to more of that behavior in real life? In other words, horse or carriage - are they a symptom or a problem?
4-What is the line for sexual fantasies (for dolls, and other content such as anime, video games, etc)? Is there a thing as "too far" and if so, where is it and how should it be policed?

1- dolls are objects and objects are not good nor bad
2- the word rape can't be used here. the idea of consent isn't relevant as far as it concerns an object.
3- it may or may not ... I really don't know but I doubt its efficiency.
4- there is no "too far" as long as the activity is safe and legal for the involved consenting adults. it should be policed the same way as other solo sexual activity.

 

[scorpioni6ths]

Which raises some moral questions:

-Are sex dolls good, bad, or neutral?
-Can a doll be raped?
-Does having dolls to enact taboo fantasies (such as rape or pedophoelia) help people who might otherwise commit those crimes on real people, or are they something society should worry about which perhaps leads to more of that behavior in real life? In other words, horse or carriage - are they a symptom or a problem?
-What is the line for sexual fantasies (for dolls, and other content such as anime, video games, etc)? Is there a thing as "too far" and if so, where is it and how should it be policed?

there is news of a Chinese sex doll rental shop (??) closing down 1 week after they opened ... I think society is *not yet ready* for these sex dolls ... in the mainstream.

Morals won't apply to the doll it is an inanimate *object* after all ... but what happens if you inject AI into *it*. Simple ... feeble mind as it is ... would morals apply to *it* now? Other people will probably try to attach morals to it ... to control the human or make the human accountable. It will probably be categorized ... here this model you can abuse/rape ... while this model has the latest morals firmware, it's a perfect wife.

I think the dolls will become outlets for. the behaviours mentioned. It is also quite possible it'll embolden these people. Some humans are mentally weaker than others. In the end they'll mix fantasy and reality.

The governments will set regulations ... you can count on it.

I'm not important enough to have my head put into a jar (and we still don't have Futurama tech) ... so I probably won't see how things will progress ...

All IMHO ...

 

[TheScientist]

1- dolls are objects and objects are not good nor bad
2- the word rape can't be used here. the idea of consent isn't relevant as far as it concerns an object.
3- it may or may not ... I really don't know but I doubt its efficiency.
4- there is no "too far" as long as the activity is safe and legal for the involved consenting adults. it should be policed the same way as other solo sexual activity.

All this. No different than any other kind of sex toy even including a loaf of bread or slice of warm liver.

 

[User#8628]

I do

1- dolls are objects and objects are not good nor bad
2- the word rape can't be used here. the idea of consent isn't relevant as far as it concerns an object.
3- it may or may not ... I really don't know but I doubt its efficiency.
4- there is no "too far" as long as the activity is safe and legal for the involved consenting adults. it should be policed the same way as other solo sexual activity.

I completely agree. I wanted to make those points earlied but didn't know how to word it.

 

[MikeH]

Is this a thread to ask what they say about us when they think we are not listening or they think we don't know robot language?

 

[Wwanderer]

Is this a thread to ask what they say about us when they think we are not listening or they think we don't know robot language?

That was my initial assumption as well.

-Ww

 

[Wwanderer]

Btw and in case some might not have known, the question of whether sufficiently advanced/complex artificial intelligences could/should have "moral standing", i.e., be conscious, capable of suffering, sentient etc is currently a topic of fairly intense professional discussion, investigation and debate. In fact and rather oddly, the US military is giving out grants and holding scholarly workshops on the topic at an accelerating rate, as are some of the world's major IT companies. If you google "moral standing artificial intelligence" you will get a lot of links of this sort:

https://philpapers.org/browse/moral-status-of-artificial-systems

https://intelligence.org/files/EthicsofAI.pdf

http://schneiderwebsite.com/uploads/8/3/7/5/83756330/schneider_smj2_.pdf

In the context of this thread, these discussions imply that we may need to distinguish between a sex doll and a sex robot controlled by, say, a DeepLearning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning) AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) system.

-Ww

 

[Wwanderer]

other kind of sex toy even including a loaf of bread or slice of warm liver.

TMI! WTMI!!

-Ww

 

[TheScientist]

Btw and in case some might not have known, the question of whether sufficiently advanced/complex artificial intelligences could/should have "moral standing", i.e., be conscious, capable of suffering, sentient etc is currently a topic of fairly intense professional discussion, investigation and debate. In fact and rather oddly, the US military is giving out grants and holding scholarly workshops on the topic at an accelerating rate, as are some of the world's major IT companies. If you google "moral standing artificial intelligence" you will get a lot of links of this sort:

https://philpapers.org/browse/moral-status-of-artificial-systems

https://intelligence.org/files/EthicsofAI.pdf

http://schneiderwebsite.com/uploads/8/3/7/5/83756330/schneider_smj2_.pdf

In the context of this thread, these discussions imply that we may need to distinguish between a sex doll and a sex robot controlled by, say, a DeepLearning (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_learning) AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) system.

-Ww

Its a subject I've been following but unfortunately most of these studies suffer from one or both of the following:

1. No actual standardization or definition of A.I. as a term
2. Severe navel gazing whargarbl of phrasing.

Its not really odd that the US Military/DoD is interested in this subject, they've always been a big spender on R&D in subjects that don't look immediately or obviously related to military usage.

To keep this on topic, I can predict with absolute certainty that if sex toys with anything simulating personality do come to market (or rather when they come to market) the "ethics" debate is going to be dominated by two groups trying to out scream each other:

1. Pearl clutching "moral" philosophers (and I use that term very loosely)
2. Feminists
3. overlapping groups of the above

In fact, writing a reasonably good* personality simulator is very easy. Pretty much trivial in fact where the use case is limited like would be the case with a fuck-bot. No AGI/deep learning or machine learning (as currently defined) required really. Could be implemented with an Arduino or a custom board costing less than a Raspberry Pi as long as you have at max 1Mb flash ram for user preference storage.

* "reasonably good" is actually far below what it takes to come close to passing a Turing test. I used to write various responsive script chat bots using ELIZA engines around the turn of the century before they were even called chat bots that could keep users engaged for an hour easily.

 

[TheScientist]

TMI! WTMI!!

-Ww

Seriously you never heard of someone fucking a liver sandwich?

 

[MikeH]

No actual standardization or definition of A.I. as a term

I believe that in the academia the definition they use for AI is "something computers cannot do yet".

Obviously that comes from the fact that whenever the computers reach a goal used for AI it changes immediately to something more difficult.

And as you said the Turing test for sex toys would be very easy to achieve. All the robot would need to do is to take her shirt off and say "fuck me hard daddy" and any horny male would believe he is talking with a real human.

 

[MikeH]

Seriously you never heard of someone fucking a liver sandwich?

I am now very thankful for my relative poor childhood as I have no idea what you are talking about. And no, I don't really need explanation either.

 

[TheScientist]

I believe that in the academia the definition they use for AI is "something computers cannot do yet".

Obviously that comes from the fact that whenever the computers reach a goal used for AI it changes immediately to something more difficult.

Very well put!

I don't really need explanation either.

Oh but you do! Warmed up just right, liver feels almost exactly like a human vagina when you slide it over your cock.

 

[MikeH]

Oh but you do! Warmed up just right, liver feels almost exactly like a human vagina when you slide it over your cock.

I think I need to get some 7-11 heart shaped chocolate -man to get over this.

https://matome.naver.jp/odai/2142303971341196601

 

[TheScientist]

I think I need to get some 7-11 heart shaped chocolate -man to get over this.

https://matome.naver.jp/odai/2142303971341196601

Hey if you wanna stick your cock in that, who am I to judge?

 

[MikeH]

Hey if you wanna stick your cock in that, who am I to judge?

Would a robot ever be able to leak chocolate like this one might ask?

In general the only moral problem I have with real-like sex dolls and robots is that they still are way too expensive.

 

[Wwanderer]

Seriously you never heard of someone fucking a liver sandwich?

It is better with raw liver.

-Ww

 

[TheScientist]

Would a robot ever be able to leak chocolate like this one might ask?

Sure, I think that some fuck-dolls already have a timed lube relate feature now, adjusting that for the viscosity of chocolate sauce would be minor engineering. Cleanup might be more of a problem for the user though.

In general the only moral problem I have with real-like sex dolls and robots is that they still are way too expensive.

Well you only have to pay for a Real Doll or the like once compared to a woman...

 

[TheScientist]

It is better with raw liver.

-Ww

You sure? Have you A/B tested? I've never tried with "well done" liver, only partly cooked.

 

[MikeH]

You sure? Have you A/B tested? I've never tried with "well done" liver, only partly cooked.

The sacrifices we do for science!

Would this work with both pork and calf liver or is there some differences? Asking for a researcher friend, obviously.

 

[MikeH]

Well you only have to pay for a Real Doll or the like once compared to a woman...

The real challenge for the AI development then is to see how long it takes before the first Real Doll leaves the guy and takes all his assets with her.