Anyone who has read the famous Kinsey report knows that humans will have sex with just about anyone and anything, from chickens and dogs over dildos and donkeys to yes, even humans. Sex with robots seems a logical evolution. But what about relationships?
, the London chess master David Levy is defending a most interesting thesis entitled “'Intimate relationships with artificial partners” on October 11, 2007 at the Universiteit Maastricht, The Netherlands. He thinks that people will start to have sex with robots within a few years from now, and certainly less than 10 years from now. According to him, our perception of sex has changed a lot.
I fundamentally agree with this standpoint. Sex toys have become normal, and where the God of the Bible ordered us to kill homosexuals, they are now viewed as acceptable, and they are even allowed to marry. There is less tolerance for zoophilia or “bestiality” as it is often still called, but that does not seem to bother most of us who practice it. We have the Kinsey report to thank for this knowledge. In short, humans are sex-beasts. They’ll have sex with just about anything vaguely compatible with their genitals. In light of this, the idea of sex with robots does not seem particularly outlandish any longer.
Levy predicts the following sequence of events. Robots are fast becoming more and more human. In a short while from now, they will be able to walk and move. Clumsy at first, more human-like later. All that is required is to incorporate the technology in dolls. Even to the current quite life-like dolls that are popular in Japan are still inanimate and passive objects; some people do have sex with them. This will only increase when more technology is added to them. From there, sex with robots as a “normal activity” seems only a matter of time. People will first try it out of curiosity. Then, the media will jump on the phenomenon. They will be followed by celebrities, and once that is done, it will become mainstream.
Sex is one thing, but a relationship? Oh yes. The requirements for humans to become enamoured with “something” are not very sophisticated. One of the main requirements for falling in love is distance. The shorter the distance, the more likely a relationship will develop. Bringing a robot home satisfies that requirement.
Two other requirements are a physical resemblance and the fact that the other party likes you as well. This is not necessarily easy in humans, and that certainly explains part of the difficulties involved in finding a partner, but it is one of the easiest things to do with robots: just adjust their face to resemble you and program them in such a way that they like you. They also must be able to register and show emotions. Take into account the incredible ease with which people can develop true feelings for non-human organisms and objects, and the trick is done. Obviously, it would probably be a good idea to make the robots look a little less cheap-fairy-tale like than the one in the picture.
Levy thinks that further experimental research is not required. Most research has been done already. It is sufficient to look at this older research and to look from there in order to put everything together.
Personally, I am incredibly excited about this, albeit only because the predictions I have been making for the past 29 years are starting to look less and less ridiculous to more and more people. Scientific knowledge of the brain and the way it functions is advancing and so is artificial intelligence.
Although I will never have one, I am far too straight, I have always been excited about homosexual relationships. These people do what they want to do, they are harming no-one, and in the process, they are helping to slow down the uncontrolled explosion of our population.
Developing relationships with robots could be the ultimate contraceptive. If enough people could have relationships with robots, tricks as one-child policies could become a thing of the past, and the world’s population might start to diminish.
There are, of course, also dangers lurking around the corner. What would happen if robots evolve so much that they take over? That is something for programmers to worry about now. The rest of humanity can simply enjoy the moment in the meantime. We live in fantastic times.
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