Is Robot Sex In Your Future?

Discussion in 'Human Science' started by KilljoyKlown, Apr 27, 2012.

  1. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    Basically it's just a more elaborate form of masturbation. At least until the robots become so complex as to resemble humans psychologically and not just physically. The joy of sex is hardly 100% sensory. It is indeed that way in many other species of animals, but we are a social species with a singularly enormous forebrain, so sex is to a large extent also a function of a relationship. So in addition to the sensory and hormonal components it also has to do with how you feel about your partner, both at the moment and in general. I don't really want to consider the possibility of people having feelings for their sex robot. I mean shit, I do go around saying, "I love my car," but I don't really mean it!
    In a nutshell, they lack the pack-social instinct that drives us to form close bonds with people we've come to know, trust, care for and depend on.

    To a limited extent I suppose they have a bit of a herd-social instinct, since they tolerate the company of other humans and can cooperate minimally to support the civilization that makes their comfortable life possible. But members of herds don't deliberately injure each other, much less kill them, and they all feel at least some responsibility to protect the young.

    They're much closer to solitary species. Perhaps like cats, who maintain a lazy, grudging camaraderie if the food supply is plentiful but will fight to the death if there isn't enough to go around. (Domestic cats display neoteny, as our filling the role of perpetual mother regresses them to perpetual kittenhood.)

    Arguably our pack-social instinct is what makes us human, because it's driven us to form larger and larger communities, so that we now weep for people dying on the other side of the planet who are no more than anonymous abstractions to us. (Don't believe me? Remember Americans crying for Neda Agha Soltan?) So it might be fair to say that sociopaths are, psychologically, not human.
    Eh. It's just the next step up from computer porn.
    So it's also the next step up from MMORPGs. Which, despite the handwringing of the Nanny State, actually do seem to be a safety valve for our violent urges.

    Despite my constant extolling of our noble accomplishments, we've only been out of the Paleolithic Era for a few hundred generations, and that's not enough natural selection to reprogram our instincts. (In contrast, that's been many thousands of generations for our closest companion species, the dog, and their psychology is considerably different from that of wolves.) So there is a caveman inside each of us. The more safe, socially acceptable outlets we give him for occasional outbursts of Paleolithic behavior, the more relaxed he'll be the rest of the time, while we provide the pizza, air conditioning, football and motorcycles that make him love this place in spite of himself.

    So when you go to the Apple store and order your sex robot, just tell them, "This is a present for my Inner Caveman."

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  3. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    The following article is a good reason to own robots that help ease the pain of getting dumped.

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  5. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    I suppose those who use Real Dolls now could be considered early adopters?

    The BBC documentary: Guys and Real Dolls.

    I suppose my lack of interest in a Real Doll is due to my lack of imagination. I'd rather be alone. But who can say if the technology were of the level of the film A.I.? Where you could have one custom made to be like someone you were in love with, but didn't return your affection? Or, someone you had been in love with, but had died? I don't know that any of us can know how we would react to synthetic humans at that level.
     
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  7. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    I'm thinking once great sex has been established, the stigma of synthetic human would be a mute point, and if you have the expensive model that can change looks and personality every day of the week. Well what can I say?
     
  8. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

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    I'm thinking that's incorrect. Sex toys (at least for men) are considered creepy, effectiveness notwithstanding. Men having long term sexual relations with a robotic doll won't be immune. If anything it will be viewed as a creepy control fetish. Think of it this way, if your wife going to happily let you buy a sex robot? No. At least a wife who's fine with that will be few and far between. Girlfriends as well will be turned off by that, and since a lifesized android will be hard to hide, they will find out soon enough.

    Why would they be opposed? In part because male masturbation has an "ick" factor, but also because our brains can't easily distinguish, on an emotional level, between a real person you're cheating on her with and a sex robot your masturbating with. We understand the different intellectually, but that is almost never enough to stave off jealousy. (Just as we can take emotional comfort from a picture of an absent loved one, even though it's literally just a piece of paper we're holding. That's obvious intellectually, but emotionally the mere image fires up certain parts of our brain as if we were looking at the loved one himself or herself.)

    Plus, I think making a android that doesn't look creepily artificial is still a long way off. And that creepy fake android look is going to keep the stigma around for a long time.

    Finally, if you press to hard to assert the benefits of sex robots, like cubing rape and sexual assault, then they will come to be seen as crutches for men prone to that, not as everyday masturbatory aids for the average joe.
     
  9. Repo Man Valued Senior Member

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    The early adopters (watch the documentary) are, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, people who are either incapable of getting an actual woman, or who are so bitter about their experiences that they have given up. So they are either going to be "creepy weirdo loner guy" or "creepy weirdo life sized sex toy guy". Except most of them will keep it quiet, so that they will just continue to be known as creepy weirdo loner guy. So the stigma won't really matter.
     
  10. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    You make some good points. Obviously androids won't be for everybody, but I sense you see them primarily as toys for boys. But when the technology is up to making them look and feel almost like a real human I don't see why they couldn't also become popular girl toys also. I don't think I'll see any in my lifetime, but if there's money to be made I'm sure it will happen sooner or later.

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  11. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Robot sex just doesn't compute for me. While it may address one of the more base needs of our species, it just seems so......I don't know how to say this gently......'developmentally arrested.' :shrug:

    Perhaps it would be easier for my head to get around if I considered it as just another 'extreme sport'.

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    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs
     
  12. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    The uncanny valley is a hypothesis in the field of robotics[1] and 3D computer animation,[2][3] which holds that when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" in question is a dip in a proposed graph of the positivity of human reaction as a function of a robot's human likeness.
    /.../
    Mori's original hypothesis states that as the appearance of a robot is made more human, a human observer's emotional response to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong revulsion. However, as the robot's appearance continues to become less distinguishable from that of a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels.[8]

    This area of repulsive response aroused by a robot with appearance and motion between a "barely human" and "fully human" entity is called the uncanny valley. The name captures the idea that an almost human-looking robot will seem overly "strange" to a human being, will produce a feeling of uncanniness, and will thus fail to evoke the empathic response required for productive human-robot interaction.[8]


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley



    For humans to like robots, either
    1. robots would need to become more human-like - which is ultimately impossible, as long as they are recognized as robots,
    2. humans would need to degenerate to become more robot-like.

    Apparently, some people think that the second option is a good and realistic option.
     
  13. wynn ˙ Valued Senior Member

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    I think you underestimate the humaneness of humans.
     
  14. domesticated om Stickler for details Valued Senior Member

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    Ok - this post will be a tad graphic.

    For me personally, one of the things that turns me on is how it makes the other person feel. I love those moments when I'm having sex with a woman and she says "I'm going to cum" or "don't stop" or "harder" or whatever. I like the fact that something I do causes feelings of arousal in the other person.

    Assuming someone were to one day build an android that was a convincing replica of a human, then I would probably be turned off by all it's artificial behaviors. If it says "I'm going to cum", it's because some coder programmed it to say that. It's totally meaningless.......probably triggered by a timer or something. So are those "sheet grabbing" moments - the android would do it as a routine as opposed to any reflection of my own performance.

    I enjoy giving oral sex to a woman, and various other types of foreplay. What's the point of giving foreplay to the android?
     
  15. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Interesting post and link. Thank you.
     
  16. scheherazade Northern Horse Whisperer Valued Senior Member

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    Good observations and comments.

    Intimacy and sex involve spontaneous exchange of physical and emotional energies which are reinforcing of our psychological needs.

    No matter how 'fool-the -eye' a robot could be made, unless it was totally convincing and we were unaware that we were interacting with a technological being, I cannot see the psychological needs being met.

    Why so much emphasis on sex beyond the biological in our species? Are we the most sex-obsessed species on the planet? Sometimes I wonder....:shrug:

    Not knocking a good romp with the right partner, just saying....

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  17. Bells Staff Member

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    I don't know. I think there is an increase of interest in sex toys designed for men, when you look at things like the fleshlight and tenga egg sell quite well.

    I do think a robotic sex doll would be viewed as being more creepy than the male orientated sex toys currently on the market.

    One would hope that if one has a wife or girlfriend, that one would not need a life sized robotic sex toy to fulfill one's sexual needs.

    I don't think male masturbation is "ick". It is perfectly normal and also part of the general sexual play between couples. What I would find weird would be a guy who felt uncomfortable masturbating or touching himself because it was "ick".

    One of the biggest issues with something like a robotic sex doll could be that the male's sexual partner might feel inadequate, or that they weren't good enough. If that makes sense...

    Never underestimate the power of a visual cue. Even on a sexual level.

    Actually, especially on a sexual level.

    You say that now, but when it does become available, people might find it less creepy. People are already willing to try new things..

    I find it bizarre that they tout things like this as a way to prevent rapes and sexual assaults. It won't curb the rapist's need or desire to rape, which is what they should be treating instead of providing them with an alternative outlet to rape.
     
  18. Cavalier Knight of the Opinion Registered Senior Member

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    Right and imagine the visual cue of a coming home and catching your boyfriend/husband in bed with what at first glance appears to be another woman. Some women will get over it. I suspect many won't. I have dated many women who assumed that I would stop masturbating (at least privately) once we were "serious," as they couldn't grasp why I would want to masturbate when I have access to the "real thing." (Masturbating as part of sex with a partner is very different though.)

    Plus, I don't think most women will want the competition any more than men would. I have seen men retreat down the porn-hole while in a relationship, and I've found most women have a somewhat limited tolerance for porn. A few movies, a couple magazines, sure, okay. If you are holding onto dozens of porn DVDs from the 90s, or have "too much" porn downloaded onto your computer, that seems to cross a line.

    (Hence online streaming porn is a godsend, as it's limitless free porn that no one needs to stockpile in a way that would creep women out. Though there is still the problem of men who retreat into porn rather than working on difficulties in their relationships, which I have heard of, but never known any man to do.)

    If "real to the eye" male sex robots start being used by women, I would expect many men to get very (irrationally) mad at the robots, in large part because of the visual cue.

    You can't judge anything by the freaky shit the Japanese will do. The Japanese have vending machines that sell "used" unwashed panties (worn by schoolgirls! Or so they tell the men who buy them), but I don't see that catching on any time soon anywhere else.

    So here's the rule: Japan doesn't count. These are the people who gave us tentacle porn.

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    I also think the kissing machine may be better in that it's not anthropomorphic. It looks almost like a dental instrument, like some sort of (bulky) water pik. The creepy factor is there (for me) but not as much as if it looked like this:

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    Last edited: Apr 29, 2012
  19. Stoniphi obscurely fossiliferous Valued Senior Member

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    There is a bit of confusion here as to how a sociopath develops.

    (simple explanation) A person that becomes a sociopath who tortures and kills other people usually starts out torturing and killing animals. Before that it is bugs. He/she builds up to doing people. This is why it is of paramount importance to locate and identify people who torture and/or kill animals for amusement - they are building up to doing people. No, the answer is not to give them robot animals to work it out on. Your suggested model is inaccurate.

    If you desire to do early intercession to prevent a sociopath from developing into a serial killer you will need to intervene in that persons childhood experience as they are growing up - likely in a very abusive environment with parents who have sociopathic/abusive tendencies. The same thing goes for a rapist or pedophile. Who becomes a pedophile? Someone who has been sexually abused as a child by an adult. Which male child becomes a rapist? One who has been abused by a woman as a child. These persons are driven by intense feelings of hurt, anger and control that develop within them over their early lives.

    In an Abnormal Personality Development class at u we studied a number of case histories of actual sociopaths in an effort to understand what creates such personalities. Here is a quick snapshot of one fellow whose case became a class study. :

    He had a hard childhood, his father left him with his abusive mother. When she was around, she was drunk and violent, working her frustrations out on her baby boy. As a teen he began breaking and entering homes to burglarize them to get money.

    At a certain point he began going through dresser drawers and taking women's underwear as well. After a while he quit taking goods to fence and began to burglarize only for women's underwear. When he switched to worn and soiled women's underwear he began to get aroused handling and smelling them. He began to masturbate in the house after he had obtained these items. Once, the residents returned home while he was so doing. He dashed back out the window and climaxed just as he did that.

    The next time, he waited for the woman to come home and raped her instead of masturbating with her soiled underwear. That was even more exciting, so the next time he not only raped his victim, he beat her up. This continued until he raped, beat and killed the unfortunate woman (not always in that order).

    He was caught and imprisoned for life after he committed a string of murders with this M.O. (fin)

    The time to intervene was while his alcoholic father was slapping him and his mom around, before dad left him to the tender mercies of his mom. The correct intercession would be to change his parent's behavior, the dynamic of his home environment, the way his parents interacted with each other and their child.

    Giving him a life-like adult woman android/robot would not inspire him or change his behavior towards actual women unless he was 100% convinced that the substitute was a real person. Then he would just do what he always did, recover and be ready for another victim.

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    The only answer for repairing a sociopath after they have developed into a mature social criminal is what we term "behavioral modification" and society disapproves of those techniques, despite that they can be effective in many intercessions. So we lock them up to keep them away from the rest of us or kill them to do the same thing.

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    As for whether robot prostitutes would work for the persons who utilize their' services, one would have to discover exactly why the client went to a prostitute in the first place, and there are a great variety of reasons for that.
     
  20. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    Are you making the assumption that all pervs are sociopaths? When I responded to your post I wasn't making that connection at all. I know sociopaths are born that way and I believe most pervs get to be the way they are because of experience learned. That doesn't mean a sociopath can't be a perv, but I wouldn't make that assumption.
     
  21. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    There comes a time in every mans life when he has to make a choice and a robot in the closet is not very endearing if found by the girlfriend. But I can't help wondering what a high school kid that didn't have to worry about sex would be like. Surely not having that major distraction would help with the studies and grades. Next, I can't help but wonder how much nicer women might treat their men if they know the competition never bitches and always gives great sex.

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  22. Fraggle Rocker Staff Member

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    How can anyone use the term "great sex" to describe any activity that does not include a human partner? Sex isn't just a physical need; we're a social species and we're programmed to do it together. I'd like to see a poll of how many men would rather get a hand job from their wives/girlfriends than simulated screaming five-star intercourse from a machine?
    No. That award goes to Pan paniscus, the bonobo chimpanzee. They are the free-lovin' hippies of the jungle, spending much of their time in sexual activity of all types, from procreative to gigantic group orgies. They are also much more peaceful, tractable and easier to domesticate than Pan troglodytes, the larger "true" chimpanzee. Both species of chimps (who are our closest relatives) have an important and unusual trait in common with humans (and many dolphin species): the females are physically capable of intercourse outside of their estrus cycle. This allows them to use it as a pack-bonding ritual. With our species it also helps a mother keep her children's father at home when she's pregnant or nursing, which is vital in a species whose young require 15-20 years of parenting.
    People who deal with this insist that in most cases rape is about the violence, not the sex. Rape is an easy crime to commit with almost no planning, because you always have your weapon with you and it arouses no suspicion. This is why castrating rapists doesn't always work very well; they'll just come back with a stick.
    Probably about as nicely as they would treat him if he was out with a prostitute who never bitches and always gives great sex.

    Methinks you are a relatively young fellow who still has quite a bit to learn about the fair sex.

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  23. KilljoyKlown Whatever Valued Senior Member

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    At some point in the fairly distant future, robots might look and feel like a human and the self aware AI may allow them to pass as fully human and also make good partners in more ways than one. But really any speculation we can make on either side of the robot sex theme is mute until it has a chance of happening for real. I won't be holding my breath. Sadly the state of human relationships between men and women is not showing a very good track record. More and more the good long lasting relationships are becoming the rare exceptions, and that fact does leave the door open for other opportunities whatever they may be.
     

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