Sex Robots ??

[HandsInTheDark]

The only problem with that is that it could easily further isolate people from the skills needed to interact with real people..

As far as I know, pedophilia at least is considered incurable; so the point is exactly to "further isolate" them from at least children. There's some trash you don't want out on the streets.

I have no idea if giving people access to their destructive obsessions in a simulated way is good or bad. Some people argued that violent video games gave an outlet to people who might otherwise have been publically aggressive; others called it desensitizing and called violence in games a bad idea overall. Still others think it makes little difference. Similar arguments get made about reading and writing here.

I have no opinion on any of that because I just don't know enough. I'm just going on the premise that "Real Doll and Furby-esque Intelligence" is a thing coming soon, and since it's coming, I"m trying to work out if there's any point to it. I see none personally. But I also know that some people are VERY unfinicky when it comes to what they'll get off on, so who knows. I'd never have imagined that people could make money selling sex dolls...

 

[CyranoJ]

I have no idea if giving people access to their destructive obsessions in a simulated way is good or bad.

Which is, to be sure, basically what porn does. Far as I know the data on porn reducing sexual violence is cautiously positive, but it's a complicated question with a lot of dimensions and adding the physical simulation of a partner would make it more complicated yet.

As far as I know, pedophilia at least is considered incurable

There's some emerging speculation about pedophilia being at least in part a neurological disorder. But it's under-studied and I suppose if simulated partners might help people with coming forward to be studied, that would be an improvement on the situation where pedophiles are only detected after they've harmed someone.

But what I was talking about is the possibility of giving people with misogynistic worldviews the means of largely isolating themselves from actual persons. Arguably the more that happens, the uglier a shock encountering actual flesh-and-blood woman-persons would become and the worse the resulting freakout would be.

 

[OliviaM]

Sorry, as far as writing my stories, I don't care a jot about that. And if I want to call my reengineered men robots, I will.

Pedantry and "rules" in fiction don't limit me if my imagination wants to brush them aside. You should read what I do with vampires.

Oh, whatever you do in fiction is fine, obvs. I'm all for robot kink. I just thought it was important to distinguish between types when having meta conversations about the morality of sexbots.

And what do you do with vampires?? Now I need to know.

 

[OliviaM]

But what I was talking about is the possibility of giving people with misogynistic worldviews the means of largely isolating themselves from actual persons. Arguably the more that happens, the uglier a shock encountering actual flesh-and-blood woman-persons would become and the worse the resulting freakout would be.

Oh man. I just got the best (non-erotica) plot bunnies. What if treatment for certain types of personality disorders was having a simulated human live with you and very patiently teach you how to interact normally with other human beings?

 

[sr71plt]

And what do you do with vampires?? Now I need to know.

They don't just require blood to survive and be ever young. They have to have the "essence" of the other as well, through sex. They also don't have some of the restrictions of movement that the vampires (which are imaginary to begin with) of others have.

 

[OliviaM]

They don't just require blood to survive and be ever young. They have to have the "essence" of the other as well, through sex. They also don't have some of the restrictions of movement that the vampires (which are imaginary to begin with) of others have.

Those sound reasonably like vampires to me. At least they don't sparkle.

 

[sr71plt]

Those sound reasonably like vampires to me. At least they don't sparkle.

If sparkling would serve a story element for me, my vampires would sparkle.

 

[CyranoJ]

Oh man. I just got the best (non-erotica) plot bunnies. What if treatment for certain types of personality disorders was having a simulated human live with you and very patiently teach you how to interact normally with other human beings?

Could be an erotic plot-bunny too. Such instruction could include learning how to have normal sex. Interesting twist on the First Time genre.

 

[OliviaM]

Could be an erotic plot-bunny too. Such instruction could include learning how to have normal sex. Interesting twist on the First Time genre.

Oooh, I like it. Also, using sexbots for real therapy sounds like a great reason to invent them!

 

[TxRad]

Oh man. I just got the best (non-erotica) plot bunnies. What if treatment for certain types of personality disorders was having a simulated human live with you and very patiently teach you how to interact normally with other human beings?

Or not very patiently, as the case may be.

 

[Handley_Page]

Or not very patiently, as the case may be.

Anything from a slap to the 10lb Lump hammer ?

 

[ElectricBlue]

Within the next 50 years, we will see something akin to poseable latex sex dolls that have very rudimentary programming.

Given that the Chief Executive of IBM predicted in 1943 that the world needed maybe seven computers (he got that just a bit wrong) anybody who predicts a long look of fifty years for sex bots is most likely a tad conservative.

Given also Moore's Law, my guess is more likely 15-20 years or so.... Mankind might get to Mars first, but it could be close.

Plot bunny: HAL' s psychotic daughter computer gets revenge on Dave Bowman for turning her dad off, by turning him on without mercy....

 

[wet_special]

...anybody who predicts a long look of fifty years for sex bots is most likely a tad conservative.

Given also Moore's Law, my guess is more likely 15-20 years or so.... Mankind might get to Mars first, but it could be close.

Plot bunny: HAL' s psychotic daughter computer gets revenge on Dave Bowman for turning her dad off, by turning him on without mercy....

Clever plot bunny. Throw in a little time travel on the return trip from Jupiter.

You may be right, 15-20 years for the rudimentary bot. Way longer for lab grown "robots."

Here's a question and maybe an answer: wouldn't it be a bit steep for early adopters, when big earners usually can afford company of the organic sort? But wait, nerds who eschew wives, disposable income.

 

[HandsInTheDark]

Oooh, I like it. Also, using sexbots for real therapy sounds like a great reason to invent them!

...

real?

Ok, so I work in a technical field and I have some idea how prone people are to making programming errors. I've even - shocking, but true - made some myself.

I have some idea how hackable computer systems are - for the same reason as previous.

You're proposing taking people with psychological issues - about which we really know next to nothing; psychiatry still hasn't evolved all that far above witchcraft - and treating them with software applications, the most complex, hackable and error prone constructs ever devised.

What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

Try to find a copy of Going Down Smooth by Robert Silverberg. 1968, I think. Sci fi writers are way ahead of you.

And that story didn't even consider malicious hacking of such software to mess with patients. Which would absolutely happen.

I fiddled with an AI sex toy in one of my stories, "Why I Love My Job". It didn't have a major part in the story but I thought it out and came to the conclusion that it would be more addictive than crack and fundamentally dangerous. What you're proposing makes that look like a toy balloon and a lolipop.

 

[CyranoJ]

You're proposing taking people with psychological issues - about which we really know next to nothing; psychiatry still hasn't evolved all that far above witchcraft - and treating them with software applications, the most complex, hackable and error prone constructs ever devised.

Yeah, that could go horribly wrong in a billion different ways, hey?

There go those plot bunnies again... hoppity-hop...

 

[Hypoxia]

Are pervs assigned to their fetishistic sex'bots for reward or punishment? Do we let pedos and their kid' bots roam in public, or are they locked up together? Do we let the violent play with snuff'bots, and must they stay indoors? Where do we hide the burro'bots and tentacle'bots?

 

[THROBBS]

Totally the wrong chassis for a sex robot! Too many pinchy joints. lol
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3302 (plus the next few pages)...

Heh heh... an early model.
Probably end up on the scrap heap.

 

[Handley_Page]

Given that the Chief Executive of IBM predicted in 1943 that the world needed maybe seven computers (he got that just a bit wrong) anybody who predicts a long look of fifty years for sex bots is most likely a tad conservative.

Given also Moore's Law, my guess is more likely 15-20 years or so....
Mankind might get to Mars first, but it could be close.

Plot bunny: HAL' s psychotic daughter computer gets revenge on Dave Bowman for turning her dad off, by turning him on without mercy....

Now There's an idea. Send Robots to Mars BEFORE we send a human.
(Shades of Isaac Asimov)

 

[THROBBS]

Making Love...

 

[wet_special]

Heh heh... an early model.
Probably end up on the scrap heap.

Pointed words there. The joints give it away, disposable sex objects, a trade-off, to be traded up from when a better model comes out.

I see women and men competing with robots for mates, with many opting out of the gene pool because robots are so much easier to please and please their mates quite well enough for them to get on with their lives. The purpose of our genes is and will always be to reproduce, but with robot mates that purpose will be disregarded to humanity's discredit and fall.

Could the crude robot mate substitute leading to population-collapse be one facet to answering the Fermi paradox?

 

[Bramblethorn]

Now There's an idea. Send Robots to Mars BEFORE we send a human.
(Shades of Isaac Asimov)

We already did! They're just not human-shaped.

(Vaguely on original topic, Leonard Cohen wrote a rather weird scene with a sentient vibrator.)

 

[ElectricBlue]

We already did! They're just not human-shaped.

(Vaguely on original topic, Leonard Cohen wrote a rather weird scene with a sentient vibrator.)

Aye, ain't they great little 'bots on Mars, trundling around taking selfies!

Cohen? What was that in? Not Beautiful Losers? The only thing I remember now from that book is the narrator masturbating over the dash of a car, and if my memory serves, a car crash. Shades of J.G.Ballard..."Crash"

Speaking of Ballard, anyone seen "High Rise"?

 

[Hypoxia]

Aye, ain't they great little 'bots on Mars, trundling around taking selfies!

I have been crawled over by a Martian lander. Before it was launched, of course. Hmm, plot bunny: a swarm of Mars'bots locates an actual Martian civilized community and turn out to be ideal for pleasuring the folk. Or Mars'bots have been mentally infected by actual Martians; when the colonists from Earth arrive, they are subjected to much sexual manipulation by the 'bots.

 

[TxRad]

I have been crawled over by a Martian lander. Before it was launched, of course. Hmm, plot bunny: a swarm of Mars'bots locates an actual Martian civilized community and turn out to be ideal for pleasuring the folk. Or Mars'bots have been mentally infected by actual Martians; when the colonists from Earth arrive, they are subjected to much sexual manipulation by the 'bots.

Mars bots are male and the ones we sent are female. A new way to start the "War of the Worlds" but please pick someone better to play the lead.

 

[THROBBS]

Mars bots are male and the ones we sent are female. A new way to start the "War of the Worlds" but please pick someone better to play the lead.

Male bots are from Mars, Female bots are from Venus...unnaturally.