[ExI] Kelly's future

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Mon, May 30, 2011 at 3:19 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> charges or report the event. This whole thread is getting very
> strange... sigh. The corners of human sexuality are just strange.

### Indeed. Regarding sexbots and satisfaction of the mythical
"emotional" needs of humans:

I came to believe that the primary emotional need that is satisfied by
a companion is actually status affiliation. Men seek physically
attractive women that can be shown to other males as a status symbol.
In addition, intelligence and an agreeable, conscientious character
are desired for their practical usefulness (living with a smart and
nice woman is just easier and more productive than living with a inept
harridan).

Another premise that needs to be articulated is that women have an
agenda that is not compatible with what men want. Due to the
vicissitudes of evolution, women are obsessed with status of their
partners (and thus likely to be at least partially dissatisfied with
the majority of available partners, since the majority of men is by
definition low status), deceptive, and faithless.

I have few doubts that building agreeable, conscientious, and smart
sexbots is in principle possible, perhaps even including a built-in
artificial womb for full functionality. If the device is very
expensive and thus the possession of only the select few, it might be
a status symbol and thus a full substitute for a woman. But once the
price comes down, this aspect of its usefulness might be affected,
just as an overproduction of Porsches would undercut brand value.

In the unlikely event that flesh men continue to exist after the
singularity and can own AI devices, I would expect that the artificial
woman would displace the vast majority of flesh women and severely
reduce their appeal, since most women are nothing to boast about.
Given the low quality of most women as companions (due to personality
problems and having the above-mentioned agenda) most men would
probably be fully satisfied with the robots, especially once the
stigma wears off, and would even continue to procreate. There would be
some men who would seek women as a status symbol, although I would
expect that most of their real emotional needs would be still catered
for be devices actually *designed* to be nice to men.

Since I am not a woman, I find it doubly difficult to analyze the
manbot question. Women are more status-obsessed in relationships than
men, and the manbot might of less use to them than fembots are to men,
unless manbots could radiate status. I expect there would be many
women whose sexual needs would be fully satisfied by manbots but still
unhappily pining for real men needed to make them feel truly wanted.

Rafal