[ExI] The Age of Sex Robots

[John Grigg]

BillK wrote:
"And it would be a good idea to supply these advanced sex robots (and
contraception) free of charge to countries that still have high birth
rates otherwise their population will outnunber western societies in a
generation or two."

Considering the future probable relatively high cost of sex robots, giving
them away to poor countries as a form of foreign aid to control their
population growth, seems unsound. And in many poor third world nations (I
live in one now as an expat), parents have lots of children as an insurance
policy for their old age. But economy model/relatively low cost sex robots
could be very useful to replace third world human prostitution, and the
immense female degradation which goes along with it.

Spike wrote:
"Plenty of married older men would see it as morally wrong to employ a
harlot (I do consider that very wrong
and have never done it.)  Those same guys might give a robot a whirl for the
same price (I don't see that as a violation of the marriage contract or any
form of adultery, and carries no risk from what I can tell.)"

If the sex robot is basically a mindless amusement park ride, then I can
largely agree. But if it has a fairly sophisticated AI mind, then I view
this as a form of infidelity.

Spike is right that many people will want androids for companionship, and
not only sex. The more advanced and expensive models will provide this
possibility. But a concern I have is that truly sentient sex androids will
be programmed/enslaved to a human master. We will need to figure out how to
deal with this situation. One possibility would be to make all
companionship/sex androids as non-sentient, and to only appear
superficially to be intelligent/self-aware. Or we could have a legal
framework where they are essentially indentured servants for a limited
number of years, and then they are set free, with a government program to
help them become fully independent.

There are currently feminists trying to fight (probably futilely) the
development and production of true sex/companionship androids. They have
already successfully stopped several sex doll "brothels" from being opened
in various big cities. But even if they succeed in the West, they will not
stop the industry in Asia. Despite western female independence in terms of
work, education and sexual choices, I think women are feeling threatened by
what is coming, and how it could affect male choices. We in the west,
currently live in a society where no fault divorce allows women to end the
marriage for simply being bored or to find themselves, even when they have
a caring husband who really tries and children who will suffer from a
divorce. Yes, women should be able to leave a marriage when they so desire,
but divorce courts tend to unfairly hammer men financially, in terms of
over-sized child support payments, alimony, giving the house to the wife,
and pensions and investments getting halved. And sometimes the women get
not half of the couple's wealth, but seventy-five percent.... It can take a
man years to recover financially, and sometimes they never do.

And so due to this divorce rape, that sometimes women do to several men
during their lifetimes, and which greatly enriches them if they married
successful guys, we now have many men who will date and have sex, but
refuse to marry or have kids. Marriage and birth rates in America have
plummeted, due in large part to male wariness of the painful realities of
divorce. Many have seen brothers, fathers, cousins and friends go through
the divorce meat grinder (I sure have). This new male awareness is causing
many American women to bitterly complain that they can't find a good man to
marry and have a family with, now that they are ready to settle down.

When the sex/companionship robot market matures, men will have the option
to turn away temporarily or permanently from biological women, to instead
have an almost supernaturally beautiful female in their home, with a face
and figure they might have only dreamed of having with a real woman. And
her abilities to physically pleasure a man may be far in excess to what a
regular flesh and blood female can do. With AI, she will be capable of very
intelligent conversations, and will be able to express emotions and
passion, even if it is "programmed." Will it be as satisfying as a happy
and healthy relationship with a real woman? I doubt it. But considering how
many men are stuck in unpleasant to painful relationships with the modern
day fair sex, it may be seen as a real alternative to consider. And of
course there will be gay men who view a male sex robot in the same way.

Yes, a man could have female sex robots at home, but then again, the flesh
and blood women he dates may not appreciate that fact, and view him as a
lesser man for it. How this develops over time culturally will be
interesting. I suspect women will view such machines as competition. And in
fact, basically already do.

What will be extremely interesting is when companionship robots get so
sophisticated that they have artificial wombs, and can actually bear a
child. And so a human would find a flesh and blood woman to provide an egg,
and that egg would be put within the android. The fertilization could
happen within or outside the robot. But I suspect many men would want to
fertilize the egg the old fashioned way, with their android partner. We
will see titles in bookshops like, "My Mother Was A Companionship Android:
And I Could Not Have Asked For A More Caring Parent."

Obviously, nothing stops women from having male or female sex/companionship
androids. The classic science fiction novel by Tanith Lee, The Silver Metal
Lover, comes to mind. And both men and women will be able to customize the
bodies, minds and personalities of their artificial paramours, to try to
achieve a level of happiness and bonding that may be highly unusual in
flesh and blood couples. We will see...

John
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