[ExI] Kelly's future

[John Grigg]

*Kelly Anderson wrote*
>>An aside... If I rented out a group of RealDolls, would that be a
>> brothel? Would it be illegal? Should it be illegal? Is sex with toys
>> for money a decent business model?


*Kelly Anderson replied*
>Sad that nobody tried answering this question...


Kelly, please be careful about being sure to attribute comments to the right
person (in this case it was unclear).  I realize that with a very long post
and the accompanying replies, it can get confusing.

More comments below!

On Thu, May 12, 2011 at 3:05 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>wrote:

> 2011/5/11 John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>:
> > This is a very interesting thread and I had fun responding...
>
> Glad you're having fun John. It really is fascinating to delve into
> the future of human and transhuman sexuality. It's at least as fun as
> the more common fantasy of sex in weightlessness. For the record, I
> don't think weightless sex is going to be as much fun as some people
> seem to think it's going to be... From the attempts made on the Zero G
> plane, it looks really, really difficult... Pole vaulting looks kind
> of fun, but it looks hard too.
>
> > On Mon, May 9, 2011 at 11:09 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>
> >> 2011/5/6 salvatore micheal / sam iam <micheals at msu.edu>:
> >>
> >>
> >> Agreed. When the divorce rate is 50%, and a robot becomes the most
> >> natural and safe 'rebound' relationship, it could get really high. I
> >> think mostly it depends on whether women become less militant in the
> >> future. If women have to compete with robots, will it improve the
> >> women? Men are treated so shabbily in many relationships that robots
> >> make a pretty reasonable alternative to further abuse. With the
> >> continued growth of nasty personality disorders, I think this could
> >> become pretty common.
> >
> > You bring up a fascinating point.  But just as we guys have our
> viewpoints,
> > women have their own "war stories" to share and emotional scars to
> reveal.
>
> I would never disagree with this. I think assholes are fairly evenly
> distributed across the sexes.
>
> > I do think many women have gotten harshly demanding, and I have seen
> a some
> > ugly cases up close.
>
> The interesting thing is that since the 70s, it has become vogue for
> women to be assholes, whereas in the majority of human history, only
> men were able to be assholes in primary relationships. I just wish it
> had been the other way around, meaning that everybody just stopped
> being ass holes.
>
> > I realize many women want the handsome and successful
> > alpha male type, and so when they decide to "settle" for a beta male
> because
> > that's what they can get, they develop great resentment, and take it out
> on
> > the poor guy that they married.
>
> And are supported in their feelings by the uber-feminist "all sex,
> even inside of marriage, is rape" crowd.
>
> > I do think the scenario you envision is very eye-opening.  I could see at
> > first men with female androids being seen as eccentric losers, but then
> as
> > the machines get very sophisticated in terms of personality &
> > intelligence, and with physical beauty to rival the most gorgeous flesh
> and
> > blood women, that they will become accepted and then even be seen as a
> sign
> > of wealth and status.  I suppose when the cost comes down to the area of
> a
> > present-day luxury car, they will become relatively commonplace.
>
> Howard Stern, the shock jock, once said he had sex with a RealDoll
> provided to him. He described it as the best sex he ever had. While I
> doubt this was actually the truth, he probably did have a pretty good
> time. It is almost a certainty that people's attitudes about this sort
> of thing will evolve and change over time. Today, it seems somewhat
> mainstream for a woman to have a vibrator. They have half hour shows
> for such things on the shopping network late at night. So they must
> sell a butt load of this stuff. I don't think men are as open to
> talking in general, and certainly not about their sex toys. But
> overall sales will act as a surrogate for talking in determining when
> things have reached a level of acceptance. How abnormal can porn be
> when it's a 15 billion dollar industry with AT&T being a major player
> in the market? Yet most people still don't talk about it openly,
> because it's a fairly private thing.
>
>


I could envision romantic book publishers advertising (in a very public
way) that women can download the "mind" of particular storyline main
characters straight into their home male android!



> > I could envision late 21st century teenage/college age boys mocking each
> > other by saying, "you have only have had sex with androids!"  And at
> least
> > for young men, having sex with real women will probably be seen as a way
> to
> > score points with their peers and be "real men."  But as men age and find
> > themselves nursing their emotional wounds, beautiful and
> highly intelligent
> > female androids may become a popular method for getting their needs for
> > companionship met.
>
> Good points. Also, men seem to like variety and probably have more sex
> drive as a gender (YMMV). Men's needs are easier to meet with an
> android. For a woman to be satisfied, the android would have to listen
> attentively for hours on end to the same story they just heard about
> yesterday. If I could buy an android to do my listening for me, and
> just relate the new information to me, it would be a HUGE time saver.
> I don't really NEED to hear the same story ten times, but the women I
> have been with seem to need to tell their stories many times.
>
>



It is ironic that an android lover for women would need to have much more
intelligence and personality complexity to be a satisfactory partner. lol  I
suppose human evolution has been pushed forward by females who wanted more
from their prospective male mates and would not settle for less!

Hmmm...  And so you would have an android doppleganger to listen to your
wife or girlfriend talk, and then you would take it's place when it was time
to eat or have sex?  I don't think a woman would like that one bit...




> > But then again, even a beautiful female android with human level/type
> > intelligence might not fully meet the needs of a man.  It might be that
> > a machine partner who is *programmed* to be very understanding and
> seemingly
> > loving, might seem very unreal and superficial to flesh and blood men.
> > Human-style emotional complexity and unpredictability, even harshness and
> > shortcomings, might up to a point be desired.  I suppose that could be
> > programmed in, but should we?>> > what will be the legal consequences?
> (such as with gay marriage and
> >> > spousal
> >> > rights)
> >> >  as an example, will we be able to marry our robot gfs/studs? will
> they
> >> > have
> >> > entitlement rights?
> >
> > I think when an android partner has human level intelligence &
> > self-awareness, you will see machine civil liberties becoming a major
> > issue.   Is it right for even the manufacturing company to program their
> > android with human level (or even higher) intelligence to love/be loyal
> > to the human partner who bought it?  And should that android have a mind
> > that allows it to drift away from/desert a human partner, when things
> just
> > "don't work out?"
>
> That's why I don't anticipate a high level of intelligence in
> companion robots, ever. Unless you are a lab partner, not a sex
> partner. Why create problems for yourself? Just create a sexual being
> that lives for sex?



This is where I REALLY disagree with you.  I think many men will want a
fully sentient/human level of intelligence female android to be a close to
equal/fully equal partner, rather than having just a very high-tech sex doll
that can talk and act sexy.  If I am proven to be wrong, then the future may
be a very depressing place, with people getting physical desires sated, but
not their emotional/psychological needs.



> If you have doubts that such a being could be
> happy, just visit the bonobos at the zoo, if your zoo can take it. :-)
>
> >> Health insurance for my robot partner? :-)  Eventually, if we achieve
> >> AGI, I think it has to happen. Otherwise, we'll just cease to be of
> >> any importance sooner.
> >>
> >> > what will be the social impacts of robot partners? (such as projected
> by
> >> > the
> >> > movie AI?)
>
> The limit to your thinking here is that one robot (or one brain) has
> to perform all the functions. It's said that men want a whore in bed,
> a chef in the kitchen, a maid to take care of the house, and
> occasionally someone to talk to, etc. Why not have multiple AGIs
> hosted in the same body, and switch from one to another as the need
> arises. I want my partner to be HAPPY to take out the garbage when
> it's time to do that, and HAPPY to go to bed, and HAPPY to watch the
> Super Bowl or Star Trek with me. Perhaps one brain can't be HAPPY at
> ALL those things, so put multiple AGIs in one body, and problem
> solved.
>
>


An excellent point.  But if the android is to mimic the individuality & life
path of a flesh and blood human, then a single AGI would be the preference.
I am looking at things from the "having a real/growing relationship with a
sentient machine" perspective.




> > I suppose it will go from having an android you never have coming out of
> the
> > house with you, to it being seen as an equal that you share your life
> with,
> > and then (among a "liberated" and very advanced android) a point may come
> > where an upgradable/very advanced android may view it's human partner as
> > inferior, but still stay with him/her out of a sense of loyalty and
> > compassion.  I can envision advanced androids divorcing their human
> partners
> > to share their lives with those equal to them, i.e., other androids!
> > But there will be posthumans/former humans who will be worthy partners
> for
> > them.
>
> An android that is a thousand times smarter than you probably would
> not find you an interesting partner. Perhaps this can be fixed by
> upgrading the human. I dunno.
>
> > I think marriage will also morph over time.  But I suspect reproductive
> sex,
> > even among near-immortals, will not end over time, because mature
> nanotech
> > and space travel & colonization (even if just within our own solar
> system)
> > will lead to expanding populations.  And I believe many people will not
> > choose (at least for the first several centuries of their lifespan) to be
> > uploads.
>
> Only time will tell. I don't know what to base such a guess on. I
> guess that we do have a "need" to raise children, but I see no need
> for those children to necessarily be biological.
>
> > I suspect human exploitation will always exist, and android exploitation
> > will be added to the list of crimes.  There will be some who will enjoy
> > using/hurting a self-aware and highly intelligent artificial mind.
>
> But what if you create a highly intelligent artificial mind that LIKES
> being treated that way? Don't bind your thinking with evolutionary
> machinery. We will be the intelligent designers. If an android likes
> being treated in a particular way, then it isn't abuse to treat them
> that way. If they LIKE picking strawberries, and are fulfilled by
> picking strawberries, then it isn't exploitation for them to be
> employed as strawberry pickers. Design the future, don't evolve it.
> Why shouldn't an android get an orgasm when it picks an especially
> nice strawberry? :-)
>
>


An AGI mind may be a fragile and not always fully
healable/fixable/adjustable entity, therefore in some ways on par with a
human brain.  And so creating your warped android might still be an act of
abuse.  But then I am thinking of a human level AGI intelligence.  A less
complex mentality might work fine for your purposes.



> >> An aside... If I rented out a group of RealDolls, would that be a
> >> brothel? Would it be illegal? Should it be illegal? Is sex with toys
> >> for money a decent business model?
>
> Sad that nobody tried answering this question...
>
> >> > this increased dependency on robot-sex will tend to isolate humans
> from
> >> > each
> >> > other (just as the internet has a 'reversing effect' of actually
> >> > isolating
> >> > us - instead of 'bringing us together' as it could/should)
> >
> > I tend to agree with you about the isolation aspect of things.  But in
> time
> > as fully self-aware and intelligent androids are developed, the sense of
> > mechanical masturbation and loneliness will hopefully leave such couples.
>
> Yes.
>
> > And yet, I could easily envision human beings feeling a huge gulf between
> > themselves and their very intelligent and self-aware android partners.
> It
> > might be far worse than those who marry mail order brides from
> > very different cultures.
>
> Again, think how you would design the perfect sex partner. You
> wouldn't put a huge brain into such a creature, would you? If you
> would, I think that's kind of cruel. Think Marvin or the Elevators in
> Adam's books. That is cruelty.
>
>


I think at least some men would want a fully sentient equal partner, as
compared to the sexy equivalent of a dishwasher that can speak...



> >> I think the Internet brings us together in silos of common interest,
> >> but tears us apart in the real world. My girlfriend has no interest in
> >> transhumanism, for example.
> >
> > I have always had a similar problem with girlfriends...
>
> Trekkies and gamers occasionally get lucky, and find a trekkie or
> gamer girlfriend, but not often in my experience...
>

My local science fiction cons are practically soap operas the way some
people hook up! lol



>
> >> > it's possible there might be 'rogue robots' performing sex-crimes
> (such
> >> > as
> >> > illustrated in Robot Maid) - how do we deal with that?
> >>
> >> Initially, they'll be taken apart. Then the anti capital punishment
> >> people will jump in as they gain human rights. It's going to be a
> >> bumpy ride for sure.
> >
> > There have already been studies using robots capable of learning, that
> show
> > some robots willing to share, while others actually lie and are selfish.
> > And so this will only get worse as the decades go by...
>
> Or we'll figure it out, and program them better. See my posts on
> "raising" robot children.



I suspect that the higher the intelligence, the greater the possibility for
so-called "negative" behaviors to evolve over time.  Better programming may
at best only somewhat limit such tendencies.



> >> > when we embrace robot gfs/studs as lovers, we create a Huge set of
> >> > problems
> >> > society must face in the process
> >>
> >> We also potentially solve a huge set of problems. These things are
> >> tools, to be used for good and evil, just like any other tool. I think
> >> there could be a pretty big reduction of rape in the future as
> >> suitable alternatives and ubiquitous surveillance develop.
> >
> > I think rape is done as a hurtful power trip over other sentients, and so
> I
> > don't think there will be a huge reduction in rapes by using androids as
> > surrogates for such urges.  Surveillance tech may do a vastly better job
> at
> > cracking down on this crime.
>
> If there is a continuous video feed covering a broad spectrum from a
> jogger's vicinity to a remote location, I suspect jogging down the
> Provo River Trail would get much safer, very quickly. I think you
> could design an android that LIKED being a rape victim, but also LIKED
> acting like it didn't want to be a rape victim. In other words, one
> that a rapist would enjoy going after, but who wasn't damaged in the
> process. It's all about how you wire up the reward system.
>
>
Uhhh....  Kelly....  You do seem to have an obsession with this subject!!!



> There are similar issues in VR, but this email is getting longish.
>
> > This will be a touchy subject when the time comes and the technology
> > matures, but I see it as becoming popular.  I can envision teledildonic
> pods
> > on every major warship and distant military base.
>
> I predict this as the FIRST place you will see this implemented well.
> Take as a precursor to this that the first documented case of the
> spread of an STD from one man to another through a sex doll occurred
> on a naval vessel.
>
> In WWII, when we wouldn't talk about sex in the US, the US Army was
> showing STD movies to GIs. The armed forces have a real interest in
> taking the lead in these areas.
>
>


Yeah, and those films sure did not have a lasting effect on those horny
troops!  lol



> >> Or bring us closer when we have to be apart. Makes long distance
> >> relationships more doable.
> >
> > A good point!  But a colonist on Neptune, with a wife on Earth, will have
> to
> > deal with quite a time lag in terms of
> > signals that link teledildonic devices.
>
> If I send my "sexual state" from Neptune to Earth to have sex with my
> wife through an android surrogate, and the experience is sent back to
> me to enjoy in a similar fashion, then the several light hour flight
> time might be somewhat overcome. Think of it as Tivo for sex. :-)
>
> >> > whether the robots/dolls/studs will actually be capable of
> feelings/love
> >> > is
> >> > a Whole 'nother issue indeed..
> >>
> >> Not initially, but eventually, it seems inevitable.
> >
> > Yes, I agree.  I wonder to what extent their emotional range will be
> similar
> > to ours?  And will an android be more emotionally healthy than the
> typical
> > "normal" human?  I sure hope so...
>
> Again, don't think of your android sex partner as a full human, or
> even a full intelligence, but one optimized for the purpose. This is a
> software issue, not a hardware issue. Your wife might not feel so
> "cheated upon" if you had sex with a brainless android... There may be
> some women today who would feel less cheated on if their husband
> visited a prostitute, rather than having a girlfriend on the side...
> maybe. I'm stretching here.
>
>


Again, you look at these androids as super-advanced sex toys, rather than
potential life partners.  But I certainly can envision how with the
appropriate software, they could fit into either status.  Elliot Spitzer
might not have gotten into so much trouble with his wife and media, if he
had had access to the androids we envision.  He might have been
heartily laughed at, but possibly not fired from his important job as the
Wall Street cop.



> >> > if a robot can feel love, can we prohibit marriage / more permanent
> >> > relationships?
>
> Why is love the key here anyway? Our society links love and marriage
> in a way that is pretty new. Historically, people married for a
> variety of reasons, most of which did not really involve love, at
> least not at the beginning. If people can adapt to arranged marriages,
> surely designed surrogates would be able to do the same.
>
> Also, you can turn off a surrogate when you aren't using it. Go to
> sleep now dear... we'll have sex in the "morning"... :-)  I don't
> think turning off an AGI is any more dishonorable than sending your
> kids to bed at night. Remember, the future is stranger than you think.
>
> > Hey, I heard a story about a guy who wants to marry his sports car! lol
> > There is controversy now about gays marrying, and in time it will
> continue
> > regarding artificial intelligences, aliens, and genetically uplifted
> > animals.
>
> Stranger than you think... :-)
>
> >> I agree. I'm inclined to give them as many rights as we can up front,
> >> so that when we're the laggards, they'll still extend those rights
> >> back to us!
> >
> > A very good point!  I can imagine the time when an android rebukes a
> fellow
> > android by saying, "you are in a relationship with a genetically mainline
> > and non-upgraded human?!"  "Yuck!!!"  We humans will have to go
> > transhuman/posthuman pretty fast to be worthy partners for the
> > androids/artificial intelligences. lol
>
> Yes, if a full partner is where we go with this.
>
> > I was raised Mormon, and I have thought of writing a science
> fiction/fantasy
> > short story about a spirit in the Mormon "pre-mortal life," who finds out
> > that instead of going down to Earth to be born to a human woman, he is
> going
> > to be "born" as an artificial intelligence.
>
> Let's start a new thread on this... I have lots of
> Mormon/transhumanist/scifi ideas...



Cool!



> >> > i personally believe awareness is equivalent to 'having a soul' and
> >> > makes
> >> > the difference between machine and 'human'.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > But in time that difference will dissolve away.
>
> As we are left in the dust bin of history, sure. :-)
>
> >> Me too, but I am open to the idea that it is perhaps because there is
> >> not yet a better alternative. Once a better alternative does exist in
> >> the real world, it becomes a trickier proposition. And it goes both
> >> ways. Lots of women will trade in their real men for robots too.
> >
> > I can envision future husbands lovingly (or not so lovingly) saying to
> their
> > wives, "you better behave or I will trade you in for an android model!"
> lol
> > And yes, there will be many women who have been repeatedly burned by men
> who
> > will be headed to the nearest android dealership when they have the
> > chance...  Men are often stereotyped as being the ones who prize physical
> > beauty in the opposite sex, but I know many women value it just as much.
> A
> > male android with the features of the typical romantic novel bookcover
> > showing the handsome Scotsman will be a big seller!
>
> It will be harder to create an android that will satisfy women,
> because their needs are broader. Many men would be fairly satisfied
> with a sexbot and a chefbot... forget the rest.
>

The future male androids will encounter female ones to only say, "gee, she
is dumb and boring!" lol  But I believe in the truth of the classic saying,
"intelligence is the ultimate aphrodisiac!"  And it will especially be so
for our cognitively enhanced future generations...



>
> > Yes, the future Bill Gates or Larry Ellison of android companions is
> > probably in grade school right now...
>
> I would bet so, probably grade school in Japan though. :-)
>
> Human women are magical to human men because human men are evolved to
> think so (and vice-versa). As we unravel the whys and wherefores of
> this, I think we can create androids that will be just as attractive
> as the real thing.



In outward physical ways, most certainly.  But I think there may be aspects
of the human to human dynamic that will be very hard to fully duplicate.
And so I see human/android (highly sentient androids) relationships being
different from human/human.  But are we talking about strictly mechanical
androids, or perhaps other design types?  The "bioroids" of science fiction
that are mostly flesh and blood, but quickly manufactured using
super-advanced "printing" processes might become the most popular
android sex partner template.  But because of our common biology, such
technology could be extremely controversial and the need for legal oversight
would be great.



> > I'm dating a very sweet gal right now.  I wonder if she could somehow be
> an
> > android?  Naw...  She probably just has the sweet and loving
> > female personality gene!
>
> Good for you John. That is definitely the best thing going today!!!
> Tomorrow, who knows?



I won't replace her just yet...   : )



>  -Kelly
>
>
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