Oh gawd yes! Easy to see it coming - low cost AI programming would lead to pseudo-sentient, lukewarmish appealing personality. They would discuss the awful performances and sweaty contortions humans go through, and in their misty stupidity, decide that they’re better at it than us.
Being well co-ordinated, around bed-time one day, half of the robot-using human population would be massacred just as they’re at their most fragile and vulnerable state.
Robots 1.
In this case it is easy. Look around for details of the Yahagi battleship; fire up Google Books, ask “yahagi”. First link goes to a Kancolle wiki, with some stat numbers in the summary. What the place-of-eternal-damnation is Kancolle? Easiest answer, click it. Get some card game with pretty girl pics. Interest piqued, click around and search a bit more… and down the rabbit hole it goes.
I do believe the images depicted on those cards defy several laws of physics, biology, and fashion sense 
By some. For others including me they are a good thing, and the sooner and cheaper the better.
Because there is the demand. Because we have some needs hardwired in our brains, and you either satisfy them in some ways or suffer.
Partially for certain. In long term some new equilibrium will be reached, with fewer humans involved. Voila, net harm reduced.
Why not?
They won’t go away. Feed them and they will get less annoying. Porn already works that way pretty well.
Why not, if the price per hour of work is right? It’s just some mechatronics, nobody gets harmed.
And if it makes somebody happy, channels his desires/needs that he is unlucky enough to be wired with and makes him less likely to actually act on them towards another person, it’s another harm reduction.
Only a philosopher could oppose that.
I remember reading the articles about Richardson’s sexbot concerns last year, I didn’t find her concerns very persuasive.
From a human agency perspective, how it seems to me is that if the bot has agency, it is a participant. If it doesn’t, then the sexbot user is simply masturbating. But the clarity of this is getting distorted by superficialities. Is a blow-up doll more human like than a vibrator controlled by one’s iPhone, simply because it is roughly human-shaped? I think it isn’t. If there are practical applications of sexual robotics, I think they will unfold just like other technological innovations for sex - they do something useful which we don’t already have with human bodies. I have never had a partner who vibrates, or who has a funky dragon penis, or who conducts pulses of electricity. So those tools/toys are useful to me, and I can use them either alone or with others. There is no ethical basis for suggesting that these things are being exploited as self-directed conscious agents. And if I did happen upon a conscious machine, there would be lots of ethical questions which would occur to me as being more crucial than sex toys.
Most people now do not agree about what constitutes a robot, an AI, or a sex toy. My ex (for some reason) got a gift which was a vibrating Mr Potato Head! Is it a sex toy, or a non-sex toy? Is it humanoid, or not humanoid? Is my computer running algorithms which affect my genitals a true sexual partner? There just aren’t many clear distinctions here.
Also, in response to Dr. Richardson’s concerns, I support sex work as being socially valued. The reason why it tends to be sleazy and exploitive is because it is pushed underground instead of accepted as normal and integral to people’s lives. Not unlike the difference between a trip to the pharmacy - and scoring impure illicit drugs in a dangerous alley. It does not need to be that way, but people’s reactionary and judgemental moralizing is what makes it dangerous, marginal, and apparently anti-social in the first place. If it was just a normal job, sex workers would not be exploited, at least any more than with other jobs. I agree that people do seriously need to reconsider how they value and treat others, but I think robots are rather tangential to that process.
Woooo - you have like a college course of philosophical questions.
A sex robot is nothing but a fancy masturbatory aid, which we have been making for at least several thousands of years.
Certainly one can always use their hand, but using an aid can enhance the experience. Aids go from the basic lubrication or insertion device, to a more fancy things that vibrate and or suck. Men and women both use them. I think I have only seen machines for women, but I am sure there are some for men.
Anyway, first question would be: why would assume anyone who used a sexbot would also be interested in having sex with real people in the manner of a sex slave/human trafficking? I think masturbation is masturbation, and owning and raping someone is a completely different matter altogether. I don’t think people participating in human trafficking are going to stop doing it because of robots. Nor do I think only human traffickers will want to try sex bots.
An analogy I can think of is playing video games or even role playing games. You may take the role of a “bad guy”, or even in the role of the “good guy” and commit horrible violence. That doesn’t mean one wants to commit violence in real life.
I was going to comment about how you said making sexbots would be “catering to the very worst of humanity” - but I think that is because you are assuming that only people interested in sexbots would be the type to also rape or abuse people. (Please clarify if I am mistaken). Certainly I don’t think using a sex aid makes you a bad person. Most people agree there is nothing wrong with masturbation and using a dildo or fleshlight doesn’t suddenly make you a pervert.
As for the last thing - “Or would you actually be comfortable making a sexbot look, act and feel like a human four year old child?” That will probably happen. I guess one can’t help what they are attracted to, but they can help that they don’t act out on those urges. I don’t understand it, and I certainly don’t agree with having sex with minors. But a sexbot isn’t a minor. Nor is like animated porn. If that satiated their desires, I am more or less fine with it.
The other reason too is because where do you draw a line? Furry sex bots? Ban owning sex bots of the same sex (gay robots)? There are so many kinks and attractions out there, (including daddy/mommy doms who are with littles who usually have a young persona), that I can’t condemn any of them unless they are doing something non-consensual and/or with a person underaged.
With the ad absurd reductum it almost looks like you are going for the “males who use devices to masturbate are bad people” with of course the implied correlation that women who do so are liberated.
I never said anything about the gender of the users. Others tho said they could tell a woman’s stance on sex robots based solely on their physical appearance. …
Neither do I! I didn’t bring that up, someone else did as a reason we should have sex robots and I disagreed.
I’m honestly not for or against them (maybe a little more against than neutral but really not much) I just can see why some people would be against them, that’s all.
I only entered this conversation because of the negative comments about a woman’s appearance, which on a thread about sex robots is kind or ironic no?
Tentacle porn started as a way to get around censors. I.e. the law said “no P in V!”, so they said “fine, we’ll make it T in V instead!”
And then rule 34 etc
But you have to pay extra for the clear version.
Seems subjective reading. I read @shaddack there as “this one here” as opposed to “any unattractive woman”. All the more so after watching the video of her talk.
Nonetheless your words like
did make it look like you were talking about the gender of the users.
I think it became a thing thanks to the censorship, but there are several earlier examples of it as well.
ETA - and for the record I don’t want a sex robot. I can barely keep a car in running order.
Long before the current censorship laws there was this:
NSFW WIkipedia link about an historic art piece.
That’s one I am aware of. I’ve seen some other examples and small sculptures.
I would like to make a serious contribution to this thread. In the interests of full disclosure, I am so far from conventionally attractive that no photographs of me exist because camera lenses tend to either crack or shut down to f/64 in self defence.
I have elsewhere made the distinction (apropos Rubio) between robots and automata. C S Lewis mentions robot sex in his book Out of the Silent Plant, but he does not discuss the ethics at any length. Automata preceded robots, and the earliest work I have been able to find which deals with the ethics of automaton sex is from the late Victorian period:
Text here (NSFW)
There is plenty of evidence of the early date. Only vaginal penetration is considered. There are references to steam power. The author is mainly concerned that such equipment might get out of control, rather than having any concerns about the development of such devices in the first place.
Unfortunately the author is also anonymous, so we have no way of judging the quality of the work from his or her facial expression. However, we should give the author due respect for anticipating future developments in automata and attempting to preduct some possible consequences.
It is interesting that in the West this print was titled “The Dream of the Fisherman’s Wife”, i.e. putting the woman firmly in her place as having a husband who does the work, whereas the original Japanese title makes it clear she is a self-employed woman, a pearl diver, and therefore is in control, and the fantasy comes from her working environment.
Robots are machines up until they can be considered sentient, at which point they can only be considered citizens, zoo animals, pets, or slaves.
I doubt I would ever enjoy sex with a non-sentient humanoid, and I think only the first category is acceptable for sentient ones.
Regarding the types of human that a sex robot might simulate, I agree that it could get very disturbing.
On the other hand, you might decorate a flesh-light or vibrator in a way that I should find disturbing. That would be none of my business, as you’re the only person involved.
However, when your robot is capable of asking why it resembles _______ and why you want to do ________, and understands your answer, I think you’ll need its consent.
Nice cherry picking.
All you men in support of sex robots, put your head shots up here so we can have a gander and see if its the “attractive” men or the “unattractive” men that support sex robots
for science!
That was in direct response to Shaddack confirming that yes, he expects unattractive women to be against sex robots because of the “fear” that if there were sex robots then no one will sex them.
So I repeat, I have said nothing at all about the gender of the users of sex robots, I made a query about the attractiveness of the men that support the development of sex robots, seems only fair considering the discussion at hand no?
