A good article, but it overlooks the fact that the rot set in much earlier when members of the then Steering Committee questioned Adrian Cheok’s decision to colocate with the Love and Sex With Robots event due to it being co-organised by Dr David Levy. Levy is at the center of a scandal in the UK over the misappropriation of over $650,000 of funds raised through Indiegogo for the production of a handheld version of Sir Clive Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum, much beloved by kids from the 1980s. The device was branded as the ZX Vega+ and over 4,700 backers still remain empty-handed, much to the embarrassment of Indiegogo, Rupert Murdoch’s Sky UK and the Sinclair family. Levy has also been criticized for proposing that every paedophile be supplied with a child-sex-robot. Cheok’s immediate response to being pulled up was to suggest that the German academics raising concerns had strong Nazi leanings. Understandably, this then lead to the Steering Committee resigning en-masse. Without them, Cheok has become a loose cannon breaking the basic rules of academia and making decisions that suggest a person who is in dire need of professional care.
2 Likes
