Aye Sexbot: welcome to the bizarre world where AI, weird sex and the Scots accent collide
BY THE END OF THIS YEAR, A FULLY LIFELIKE TALKING SEX DOLL WITH RUDIMENTARY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL GO ON SALE FOR £12,000. HERE, JUDITH DUFFY INVESTIGATES THE SHOCKING CONFLUENCE OF ROBOTICS, ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND HUMAN SEXUALITY –
ONCE it was confined to the realms of science fiction: now the rise of the sex robot is here and, wait for it, they will be speaking with Scottish accents.
A “sexbot” call Harmony which can move its head and talk will go on sale at the end of this year for a cost of just under £12,000.
The doll, which incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) with a lifelike human body, is being seen as a step towards sex robots becoming commercially available for the first time.
However, experts have cautioned that the introduction of sex robots in society will bring a “huge ethical mess” for society to deal with in the future.
The Harmony robot is being brought to life in a workshop in a factory in San Marcos, California, which has been creating human-like sex dolls – called RealDolls – using special effects technology for two decades.
The founder of Abyss Creations, Matt McMullen, describes the project which created Harmony as an “ongoing endeavour to integrate emerging technologies with life-sized silicone dolls artistry”.
In essence this means a fully animated head which can smile, frown, blink and talk – with a variety of customisable AI personalities – such as jealousy and shyness – and four options for accents, with Scots a firm favourite.
McMullen said: “Many people who may buy a RealDoll because it is sexually capable come to realise it is much more than a sex toy. It has a presence in their house and they imagine a personality for her. AI gives people the tools to create that personality.”
A spokeswoman for Abyss Creations also told the Sunday Herald the Scottish accent was chosen for the Harmony prototype because the team “liked how it sounds”.
She added: “When they were choosing from the original voices, the Scottish accents sounded the most natural and developed of them all.”
However, it still seems a long way from the prediction made a decade ago by artificial intelligence expert Dr David Levy that people will be marrying robots by 2050. Levy, the author of the book Love And Sex With Robots, said the technology was still in the early stages and progress had been slower than expected. But he added that companies will be investing more money in research and development to produce better products – like any other consumer electronics. “There will be huge demand for [sex robots] and the price will come down because of demand,” he said. “They will become very popular, particularly with people who find it difficult to have good relationships with humans.
“I see the main market as being for people who are lonely and miserable and they don’t have anyone to love. I think such people will find it very healing to have robots.”
Levy acknowledged there were many different views on the ethics of having sex with robots, but added: “For me it is almost like two consenting adults in private – does one really mind what they do? A lot of people ask me the question why is it better to have sex with a robot than a human – that is really not a sensible question. The real question is, is it better to have sex with a robot or no sex at all. For people like that I think these products are going to be a real boon.”
Levy also said the study of sex and relationships with robots is becoming a “serious academic discipline”.
The third International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots will take place in London in December, with a number of academic papers now being published on the topic.
THE journal Multimodal Technologies And Interaction devoted a special edition to the issue of Love And Sex With Robots this year. It included a study examining the “uncanny valley” effect – where robots that look too human-like can provoke feelings of disgust, fear, anxiety and distrust.
This is an effect which can be easily seen in eerie images showing headless torsos and rows of blank-eyed faces lined up at the Abyss Creations factory in San Marcos.
But the paper, written by Cheyenne Laue, from the University of Montana, USA, argued there may be increasing acceptance of robots which “look, talk and act like us”.
It stated: “In short, we may come to accept aspects of robots’ strangeness as part of whom or what these robots are, rather than perceiving dissimilarity as flaws or problems with design ... it may not matter as much whether a robot actually possesses traits such as agency, intelligence, or the neuro-biological capacities for ‘real’ love. What matters most is that we often perceive them to, and we are almost certain to begin to love them in return.”
However, the idea of sex robots becoming a normal part of society has also provoked much controversy to the extent that a new “movement” has been formed against it. Professor Kathleen Richardson, a robot ethicist at De Montfort University, Leicester, founded the Campaign Against Sex Robots to highlight potential risks to humans. Richardson set out concerns about the robots being part of a “wider culture of objectification” in paper published earlier this month, co-authored with Florence Gildea of the University of Cambridge. It said: “Rather than representing progress ... it seems likely that sex robots are a re-articulation of an already widespread phenomenon: the treatment of humans as (sexual) objects, and the treatment of sex as a commodity. “We should be less concerned with elevating robots to the level of humans, and accordingly granting them rights, than we are with the dehumanisation of persons.” The paper raised particular concerns around the impact on young women, who are “likely to find themselves deficient when men’s sexual attentions are directed at sex robots which never age, put on weight, get pregnant, or say no to sexual advances”. “It might be argued that the solution, then, is to encourage the production of sex robots
designed to appear male,” the researchers added. “But to argue for an equality of the lowest common denominator – where everyone relates to all others as an object – is to exacerbate the problem, not provide a solution.”
For Vic Grout, professor of computing futures at Wrexham Glyndwr University, Wales, the biggest concern is around what will happen when technology becomes more sophisticated in the future – which could create a “huge ethical mess” to be unravelled.
He predicted that it will be possible to have sex robots in “any shape and size”, with intelligent artificial skin which looks and feels like the real thing.
These could even be configured at home, Grout said, preventing the need to order from companies like Abyss Creations, which states it has ethical boundaries which excludes the creation of a child doll or catering for “extreme fetishes”.
“I don’t think there is going to be much to prevent, for example, a realistic child sex robot in both appearance and behaviour,” he added. “Certainly the technology is going to be there.”
He said in the future, some celebrities might sell their image to be created in a sex robot, but raised concerns over what might happen if someone’s face and body was used for this purpose without their consent.
“What intrigues me particularly about the sex robot angle is just the fact it could be 100 per cent configurable and what would people do with it – that is an incredible question,” he said.
“The morality of that is very difficult. You could argue there are legitimate uses for it – recreating a partner that had died. That might sound a bit creepy to some people, but it might suit others.
“But then again if you can do that, what about an ex-partner who is still alive and doesn’t want to have anything to do with you? It is a really difficult one.”
On the issue of whether society will ever come to accept sex robots, Grout said there was a sense of inevitability.
“I don’t think there is going to be much to stop this,” he said. “To a large extent I guess sex robots will take the same role as existing sex toys and pornography do, in that we all know it is there in huge volumes, and we choose whether or not to partake.”
He added: “To suggest a complete alternative, governments could decide to come down on this stuff like a ton of bricks, but I doubt it as I just don’t quite see the mechanisms for doing that.”