Everyone who’s witnessed (or been) a toddler with a security toy, or a middle-aged man with his dream vehicle (bike, car, boat) already knows: When there are people-shaped robots, people will anthromophocize / individualize them. And when there are people involved, of course sometimes there will be sex, but also there will romanticization. From NYMag:
… Henry is six feet tall, with six-pack abs and the customer’s choice of penis. He’s just a prototype at the moment — you can’t buy him — but the two female models Realbotix developed alongside Henry will ship this summer. So far, there have been 50 preorders at $12,000 apiece. Henry, Harmony, and Solana have sturdy silicone bodies, and once they’re synced up to a corresponding app, they can give compliments, recite poetry, tell jokes, and seduce.
Or at least, this is the general idea. The easy fantasy of what a sex robot might be — indistinguishable from an actual human, except hotter and prepared to fulfill any desire — is far from the current reality. Henry, if we’re being cruel, is essentially a high-quality dildo attached to a fancy mannequin with a Bluetooth speaker in his head. But the gulf between what we imagine and what’s possible makes sex robots the perfect vehicle for pondering our sexual and technological future. We might not wake up with sex robots in our beds tomorrow, but right now they’re an irresistible thought experiment. Since making my date with Henry, he’s become my favorite dinner-party topic…
… The official research on who would or would not fuck a robot is small. In a 2016 Tufts University survey of 100 people, two-thirds of men polled said they’d have sex with a robot and two-thirds of women said they would not. On the day I meet bot-boy, Harmony and Henry have just returned from filming a man-on-the-street bit for Jimmy Kimmel Live! Kimmel asked passersby if they would consider falling in love with one of the robots — the segment has yet to air, but apparently they got a lot of “nos.” McMullen says he created Henry in order to “represent both genders” and put to rest complaints that his company was objectifying women. In other words, Henry is not a response to known market demand.But if, for now, all sex robots are more or less novelties, they’re also a window into our desires. Building a robot for the purpose of sex means defining what sex means to us — whether it’s strictly friction or requires something else, emotion or responsiveness or surprise. It also means defining what we want in a partner (assuming that we know) and asking how much we expect out of sex with our fellow humans…
Abyss Creations, the home of Real Doll and Realbotix, is nestled among the brown hills of San Diego County, at the end of an industrial parkway, near a Hampton Inn. It’s a two-story office building that could easily be a dentist’s or real-estate office, not a place where high-end sex dolls are designed and produced. Catherine, a 26-year-old woman with glasses and an acid-yellow bob dyed to match her denim jacket, stands behind a desk decorated with a row of prototype monster dildos. Like, actual monster dildos: someone’s fantasy of what Frankenstein’s monster’s genitalia look like. (The answer: girthy.) Catherine is the company’s social-media manager, publicist, and, today, tour guide. “Welcome to Real Doll,” she says with a yawn, gesturing to a glittery sign. “Let’s meet the girls.”
“The girls” she’s referring to aren’t robots; they’re the life-size silicone “Real Doll” sex toys that first made the company’s reputation. Abyss sells about 30 of these a month. The difference between a Real Doll and a sex robot (branded a “Real Doll X,” in a nod to the iPhone X) is the addition of a robotic head, which is controlled via Bluetooth through an Android app. Users who already own dolls can upgrade by ordering a head à la carte. While an ordinary Real Doll is stationary and mute, the robotic heads have moving eyes, mouths, and faces; they can speak in various pitches and accents (Scottish and English), remember names and preferences (do you ask more about movies or books?), and display personality traits (from Intellectual and Talkative to Insecure and Moody) that users select…
Buyers purchasing Harmony or Solana — or Henry, if he makes it to market — will be able to customize their robotic heads online. Would I rather stare into Henry’s hand-painted Freckle Legume eyes or Volcanic Sunburst eyes? Do I want to stroke his beard or bare face? Do I want him to have elf ears? For $275 extra, he could! I feel like a kid in an X-rated Willy Wonka factory…
Believe it or not, this is *not* the creepiest article in NYMag‘s current issue: Even apart from Olivia Nuzzi’s “Donald Trump and Sean Hannity Like to Talk Before Bedtime”, there’s the techno-media nightmare of “Body Con Job: Miquela Sousa has over 1 million followers on Instagram and was recently hacked by a Trump troll. But she isn’t real.”
Major Major Major Major
Sure. Why not. Maybe the incels will stop killing people.
EBT
My story two weeks from now is the reader has a chip in their head that lets the domme control their actions.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: the reader? How does that work?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s a thing in the Manosphere. All women will be replaced by sexbots. Have you ever heard of a weirdo who goes by the blogging name, Heartiste? He’s written “essays” on the topic.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: you really need to hang out in better parts of the internet.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major:I write in second person. It’s a kink story so it goes where I want it to go and ends with sex. The reader is just along for the ride.
Yutsano
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I want to say that’s a joke but…I can totally see people thinking that’s a thing.
Major Major Major Major
@EBT: ahh, I’d been assuming you wrote in first or third.
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Second, and I channel all my experience being the submissive in real life interactions to write some pretty convincing 2nd person stuff.
This week’s story didn’t do too hot sadly and at 4116 words was my longest story yet. Took me a full eight hours or so to write, with distractions.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I only heard about it when I used to keep up with the manopshere via RationalWiki and the Wehuntedthemammoth blog. I do not visit those places directly. The stupid is too great to view without a filter, much like the protective eyewear worn by Manhattan Project scientists during the Trinity test
Anne Laurie
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I can assure you just from personal experience, those guys have been “sharing their expertise” with the rest of us for at least 40 years. When I was a fresh sf-fandom newbie in my 20s, there were already plenty of dissatisfied men-fen predicting the upcoming Sex Robot Paradise where “people” (i.e., not women) would be able to enjoy their best lives spending every minute they weren’t having Talmudic discussions about comic-book trivia with a harem of hot, submissive human-shaped fleshlights.
Heck, a classicist would probably point out that Pygmalion has been an “artistic” role model for the past couple thousand years!
But this particular article was from a younger female reporter’s viewpoint, which is why I found it interesting beyond the usual Westworld stereotypes.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I’ll allow it.
@EBT: aw, sorry to hear that.
I actually sold my first story today!
Major Major Major Major
Futurama educational reel on the dangers of dating robots
EBT
@Major Major Major Major: Hell yes! Congratulations!
I have made a grand total of about six tenths of a cent per word, for my unsolicited work. I assume you got a better deal.
Chet Murthy
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe I’m just too old. But my suspicion is that the incels will teach themselves to find their pleasure in brutalizing their sex-toys, will bit-by-bit be unable to distinguish between sex-toys and women (gosh, that’s a stretch) and end up hurting and killing women. I think nothing good can come of putting uncanny-valley female simulacra in the hands of messed-up men.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Here’s an example of second person POV:
EBT
@Chet Murthy: Incels can’t really afford to buy things as part of the whole unattractive thing.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: I know what second person is.
”How To Become A Writer” by Lorrie Moore is a particular favorite.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I figured you did. I just wanted an excuse to write some very short story fiction.
Are you trying to say something ?
Thanks for the pdf. I read it tommorow
oatler.
Big Bang Theory had some running gags about Howard and robot devices.
“Because one was all you needed, right?”
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: speaking of very short fiction about leaving a party, have you read A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life by David Foster Wallace?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Anne Laurie:
These men don’t want to have real relationships with real women, they really do just want a sextoy. Everyone has their fantasies, but they’re just that: fantasies. And you’re right that it’s not a new phenomenon. In the past these men were often able to get married because women didn’t have the level of autonomy and independence they have had since the latter half of the 20th century. Now, they’re bitter about it.
NotMax
We’ve been ready since Metropolis.
Mary G
@Major Major Major Major: Congratulations! I read the first story on that site about Suzy the octopus and enjoyed it.
Have you gone off the comic?
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: needs more characterization. Who are “you”? All we know is you have a self preservation instinct and don’t like being humiliated at parties.
@Mary G: I was taking a break to finish my novel draft, then extended it to finish the short story. That being resolved, I will resume drawing panel three of strip one of chapter three.
ETA yeah that octopus story was real fun!
Anne Laurie
@Chet Murthy: The RealDoll manufacturers would (no surprise, of course) argue that their product is a useful outlet. The dolls can be returned to the factory for repairs / reconditioning / upgrades, and every article I’ve seen (probably fewer than a dozen, over the past five years or so) mentions that some of those dolls come back in such bad shape it grosses out even technicians used to spending their days assembling humanoid sex dolls. Frankly, I think that for some people, what the behaviorists would call redirection of their urges onto inanimate objects is probably a blessing for all concerned… even if it does feel like training a dog with an unbreakable habit to “get your humpy” (go find his favorite fuzzy pillow) when he starts mounting the other dogs / the good furniture / a guest’s leg…
And then there’s the mission creep: Should pedophiles (who otherwise would be forced to remain celibate for life) be allowed to access child-shaped RealDolls? Yes, the question has been asked in enough of a ‘mainstream’ forum that there have been articles, if you wanna google.
SectionH
@Major Major Major Major: THAT’S a giant YAY! GO YOU!
(Like MaryG, I am still looking forward to your next comic installment)
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
I hadn’t but that’s fairly accurate, although I’d say that’s more basic human nature than anything; it could be set in almost any culture or time period and still be the same.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: You’re not wrong, which is perhaps why it’s called A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life.
@SectionH: Thanks! It really is up next on the list.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh I agree. It was just something I wrote in like 2 minutes. If I had been serious it would have been paced more slowly in the beginning where more setup would be.
I like stories that take their time where necessary, for things like characterization.
But what’s there was passable, right?
Oh and congrats on selling your first story.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: It’s fine, it just needs a blast from your spice weasel.
Anne Laurie
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Yup.
But there’s hope for social improvement, really! Again, from personal experience: I was in my 20s/30s in the 1970s, and there were guys in my loose social network (sf fandom) who thought it was acceptable to start their first conversation with me by saying — this is an exact quote, from one of them — “I hear you’re a feminist. Do you know what I hate about feminists?”
After he explained, with rather more detail than I actually needed, what he hated about women who allowed themselves to touch their male partners in public… even to make obvious public choices about soliciting the attention of a man they found attractive… was that Mr. I-Hate-Feminists wanted the same freedom himself, but thought he couldn’t risk it.
That particular guy fell in love & came out of the closet just a couple of years later, and he was *much* happier (not to mention nicer to be around). And he wasn’t the only person of my acquaintance who followed that arc, either.
Things have improved enough, after 40 years, that even though young gay men may feel incapable of coming out IRL, there are far fewer “nice guy” innocents turning their rage against women because they can’t turn it against the people/socialization that makes it impossible for them to come out. I’ve always hoped that in another 20 or 40 years or so, “our” society will have advanced enough that men with outer-limit-of-‘normal’ social skills will be able to comprehend that their lack of ‘hotness’ is not the fault of / something to punish other people (women) for. And such social retraining may indeed require, at least at an intermediate stage, the use of non-human sexual surrogates. But then, I’m old enough to remember the Leisure Suit Larry video game(s).
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Last dog owned (a female black lab), trained her to hump a chosen leg on command.
Not a command given every day, but good for a laugh at parties.
SectionH
@Anne Laurie: Yeah, because gay marriage would mean ppl could marry their dogs next.
Srsly, I haven’t overthought this before, because I’d have had to think about it first, what acceptable robot bodies would be. (Quick answer, if they’re not fitted with more AI than we have now, whatever.)
Is there any damn limit to idiots worrying about other people sex lives?
eta sigh. Of course not
EBT
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: There is an episode of the F plus about people who buy and sell used sex dolls. https://thefpl.us/episode/17
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Ha! Is Futurama still on the air?
You ever read a book or a story where the narration is third-person but is written partly as the thoughts of the character? Is there a literary term for that? I’ve always liked that writing style
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
It got canceled a fourth and final time in 2013.
Third-person limited? That’s what I tend to write.
NotMax
@Anne Laurie
Old enough to remember the Leather Goddesses of Phobos computer text game?
;)
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
That’s it, I think. I like it because it lends itself well to dead-pan snarker-style humor. I sometimes to write in that style as well but I will occasionally swap to another character’s persepctive.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax:
Wow, I was reading about that the other day for some reason. I think I fell in a wikipedia hole from A Mind Forever Voyaging.
Anne Laurie
@NotMax: Too old for that! Wikipedia says it was released in 1986… by which time, I’d mostly stopped paying even nominal attention to the not-yet-Spousal-Unit’s gaming friends.
Amir Khalid
As fascinating as they may be, these sex dolls are and shall always be a poor imitation of a real human being. They’re for people who don’t want a real, demanding human in their lives — they don’t expect anything of you, whereas a real human would expect things like being lovable in some way, decency, the ability to hold up their end of a relationship. For the rest of us, a sex doll would never do.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Major Major Major Major:
I’d pay good money to hackers to develop an “incel rejection” virus for the AI of sex robots when they become widespread…
Viva BrisVegas
@Major Major Major Major:
That would only work until the development of AI.
Upon which event the fembots will all then form a lesbian feminist collective.
Suburban Mom
@SectionH: How much and what kind of AI is acceptable for a sexbot is a discussion in AI ethics circles. It normally sends everyone screaming back to the question of whether your self-driving car is allowed to hit a brick wall and kill you to protect some number of pedestrians.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Major Major Major Major:
I could have used the unnameable horror with mango chutney in one of the threads last night.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Dead thread?
I read the Stepford Wives novel years ago. The basic premise was that any guy would prefer an animatronic wife to a real one. And the way you spotted an animatronic “perfect” wife was always the same: they made really great coffee, they were apparently really enthusiastic about sex (never explicitly described), and they didn’t sleep but could be spotted cleaning the window blinds in their perfect homes at 3 am.
Even as a youngster barely out of adolescence I found this insulting to the men, the implication that those things were all that constituted the perfect relationship.
PaulWartenberg
but then what if the sex robots want to have sex only with other sex robots? I don’t think I could handle that rejection.
Central Planning
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: my wife as I could use a house wife (or house husband) to do all those chores for us.
Imagine swapping your house-bot with neighbors! I need one that can do lawn work this weekend and you need one that can cook a mean beef wellington. I could see a market for renting different robot specialties.
Ken
@Chet Murthy:
Depends on whether the simulacra have a killbot mode. I suppose also whether said mode can be triggered remotely, and turned off later.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken: Vagina dentata could be a real thing!
Ken
@Central Planning: I’ve sometimes wondered why more neighborhoods don’t have a shared pool of lawnmowers. Usually every household owns one. Something similar would happen with the house-bots, I’m sure – everyone needs both the lawn-bot and the chef-bot, or they’re not keeping up with the Joneses.
Frankensteinbeck
I know a woman who has told me she’d like a sex-bot. There is a market, they’re just not loud about it. She wants a higher level of active participation than is currently possible, which might be why the market hasn’t emerged yet. Note that one third of women in the article were interested. Even if it’s half the size of the male market, that is significant.
@Chet Murthy:
Usually, the ability to release unhealthy desires in fantasy is catharsis and helps keep those desires in control. The millions of women who loved 50 Shades of Grey sure as Hell didn’t get trained to want to be raped in real life. The trick is context, keeping it clear that fantasy is fantasy and not real life.
The people who can’t keep that straight, who don’t respect consent, who commit acts of violence, it’s their fault and no one and nothing else’s. The problem is they’re selfish criminal assholes, not the direction of their desire.
Hermann Fegelein
AF 709
E
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: No, you are referring I believe to “free indirect discourse,” made famous by none other than Jane Austen.
Countme-a-Demon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGPcOkebXc
Miss Bianca
Wow, so we are finallly entering “Silver Metal Lover” territory? (One of my all-time favorite sci-fi/fantasy novels, btw…don’t know what that says about me!). Except, of course, the whole point of Silver as a character was that he *was* a character, not just a sexbot. Dunno what it says about men and women in general that the male fantasy of a female sexbot is a woman who can’t ot won’t express inconvenient emotion or independent thought or action, while female fantasy of male sexbots is…very different. As in, a male who *won’t* objectify them. And that’s just cis/het-oriented bots we are talking about…
Steeplejack
Creepy, relevant movie: Ex Machina (trailer).
Mr. Prosser
Just finished the article referenced on Miquela. The novel I kept thinking of was William Gibson’s Idoru”
MagdaInBlack
@Amir Khalid:
Dead thread, I know…but…these guys don’t want sex bots because it isnt really about sex so much as control and domination of a living person…..and they don’t feel they need to improve themselves.
Reading a little of their “discussions” leaves you needing a shower and with an understanding of why women avoid them. They’re entitled creeps.
If only sex bots were the answer!
El Caganer
“Open the pod bay door, Hal.” “I’m sorry, Dave. I know you were planning to insert your dongle into my port, and I cannot allow that to happen.”
Brachiator
@PaulWartenberg:
Very funny.
ETA. An odd and interesting thread to run across on a Sunday morning.
I guess I think that improved sexbots will be inevitable, although I wonder if they will be too expensive to be anything more than a niche product.
I also assume that they will appeal to some men and women, not just be a male fantasy thing. But yeah, more men may want them.
And I think we will know that sexbots have become a big deal when churches start railing against them.
Mike in DC
I suppose we may yet distinguish between sex with an anthropomorphic robot running a sophisticated sex slave emulator, and sex with an embodied AI, where consent is mutual. In the first case we have an incredibly sophisticated masturbatory aid; in the second we have an intimate interaction with a thinking machine.
Brachiator
@Steeplejack:
I think that this movie and also the movie Her are some of the best recent considerations of the interaction of humans and artificial beings.
@Mike in DC:
There is the question of whether “consent” could ever be “real” in a robot created to provide pleasure.
pappenheimer
Thanks, due the the Silver Metal Lover mention, now I can’t get the single best answering machine message in SF out of my head…
Mike in DC
@Brachiator: Well, suppose the robot were created to provide a general AI the means to socially interact with humans. As part of that it would of course be capable of sexual interaction.
Brachiator
@Mike in DC:
In some discussions about robots and AI, I notice that some people insist that these things would be ultimately nothing but tools that could never do more than what they were programmed to do. So, again, consent would not be an issue.
As an aside, the recent movie Blade Runner 2049 has some interesting scenes where someone argues that a female artificial being argues with and even disagrees with her … owner… because this is part of her programming to please him.
Anyway, other people seem to be arguing that if you create AI powered sexbots, especially “female” sexbots, then you have some obligation to make them like real human women and allow for social interaction rather than just pleasure.
It will be interesting to see what developes if this stuff becomes close to actually happening.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Anne Laurie:
You need to keep up with the times Anne, one line gaming let’s the dude bros do it each with other using female avatars and I’ve seen be a problem for some young women because the guys aren’t horny stupid and will pay attention to what women in question is actually saying instead of just trying to get into her pants. In my on line role playing game we had one player who is a teenage girl who is pretending to be a teenage guy pretending to be a teenage girl looking for a guy. She hasn’t had much luck because she pretty much viscous asshole.
In the high tech future everyone will be beautiful so it’s the best looking personalities that thrive.
MadiX
Not one mention of Questionable Content?
oaguabonita
@Viva BrisVegas: This is one of those rare comments here that makes me wish this site had an uprate function.
oaguabonita
@El Caganer:
!
jl
” Henry, if we’re being cruel, is essentially a high-quality dildo attached ”
For a lot of men, that would be generous.
Mo MacArbie
Eh, who needs realism? I want Kirk’s green space girl. I want one that lights up at the end, with her head spinning around, confetti shooting out, to a crescendo of “Stars and Stripes Forever”.
Then there’s the porno idea. I’ve come to grips with the fact that I will never make this movie, so here’s the gist: your basic Trek-like space opera, but sex robots serve as the interface for all of the ship’s controls.