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elfsAdam Rogers has a new article in Wired entitled Sex With Robots, and I just cannot get over how fundamentally misguided and immoral the article really is. The entire article is predicated on a pernicious and ill-considered anthropmorphization of devices that are purposefully designed, by humans, then constructed and deployed from a factory.
Rogers starts with this thought:
I'll be coming back to this paragraph repeatedly, because it, and a final sentence I did not include, are at the heart of Rogers's incoherence and amoral thinking.
Let's start with what we talk about when we talk about sex robots. There are three completely different technologies at the heart of this issue, they are all in their infancy, and they are all improving rapidly.
First, there is up-close, small-scale sensory realism. Does the thing we're talking about look like a human being? Does it feel like one, even at the very smallest scale? If you squeeze it's upper arm, does it feel like a bicep? Is the belly squishy and soft, or muscular and hard, and in either case is it convincingly human? Does it move like a human, smell like a human, and even taste like a human? 1
Second, there is large-scale mobility: can the thing we're talking about move inside a human space? Can it walk, climb stairs, dress and undress itself, climb under the covers, manipulate the light switches, and shower on its own without a human being lifting and turning it?
Third, there's the capability for emotional realism. Can the thing we're talking about sound like a real human being? Can it hold a conversation, react to stimuli in satisfying ways, read your verbal and physical responses, and react to them in an appropriate, safe, expected, and pleasurable manner?
All of these technologies are being pursued independently. Small-scale sensory realism is a combination of RealDolls to surgical quality synthetic skin, along with whatever improvements come along to make taste and smell work just as well. (I have this disturbing notion that future sex robots will have groins and armpits doped with a combination of pheremones and vape-style flavorings so the upper brain is going "strawberries!" while the back brain is screaming fuck now!). Large-scale mobility is the sort of robotics technology pursued by outlets like Boston Dynamics and Toyota.
The third technology, emotional authenticity, is being pursued by Google and Microsoft and just about everyone: it's called Human Interface AI Design, and it's an emerging discipline of matching our speech and the device's responses.
The first two are just technologies. The last is where the rationalizing rubber meets the risky road, and Rogers initially seems to be addressing that danger, but he isn't. His conclusions are philosophically incoherent and morally offensive.
I believe there are deep and inherent risks in the third technology on two fronts, neither of which Rogers addresses. One is rooted in the terrifying reality of our modern day culture, the other in the horrifying thought experiments of science fiction writers for the past century.
We'll discuss both of those later.
1 The fact that, right now, forums discussing silicone sex dolls like RealDolls recommend putting talcum powder on the surface to make it feel "more lifelike" is a huge tell: no one kisses a relief machine.
Rogers starts with this thought:
On the one hand, technology isn’t sophisticated enough to build a sentient, autonomous agent that can choose to not only have sex but even love, which means that by definition it cannot consent. So it’ll necessarily present a skewed, possibly toxic version.
I'll be coming back to this paragraph repeatedly, because it, and a final sentence I did not include, are at the heart of Rogers's incoherence and amoral thinking.
Let's start with what we talk about when we talk about sex robots. There are three completely different technologies at the heart of this issue, they are all in their infancy, and they are all improving rapidly.
First, there is up-close, small-scale sensory realism. Does the thing we're talking about look like a human being? Does it feel like one, even at the very smallest scale? If you squeeze it's upper arm, does it feel like a bicep? Is the belly squishy and soft, or muscular and hard, and in either case is it convincingly human? Does it move like a human, smell like a human, and even taste like a human? 1
Second, there is large-scale mobility: can the thing we're talking about move inside a human space? Can it walk, climb stairs, dress and undress itself, climb under the covers, manipulate the light switches, and shower on its own without a human being lifting and turning it?
Third, there's the capability for emotional realism. Can the thing we're talking about sound like a real human being? Can it hold a conversation, react to stimuli in satisfying ways, read your verbal and physical responses, and react to them in an appropriate, safe, expected, and pleasurable manner?
All of these technologies are being pursued independently. Small-scale sensory realism is a combination of RealDolls to surgical quality synthetic skin, along with whatever improvements come along to make taste and smell work just as well. (I have this disturbing notion that future sex robots will have groins and armpits doped with a combination of pheremones and vape-style flavorings so the upper brain is going "strawberries!" while the back brain is screaming fuck now!). Large-scale mobility is the sort of robotics technology pursued by outlets like Boston Dynamics and Toyota.
The third technology, emotional authenticity, is being pursued by Google and Microsoft and just about everyone: it's called Human Interface AI Design, and it's an emerging discipline of matching our speech and the device's responses.
The first two are just technologies. The last is where the rationalizing rubber meets the risky road, and Rogers initially seems to be addressing that danger, but he isn't. His conclusions are philosophically incoherent and morally offensive.
I believe there are deep and inherent risks in the third technology on two fronts, neither of which Rogers addresses. One is rooted in the terrifying reality of our modern day culture, the other in the horrifying thought experiments of science fiction writers for the past century.
We'll discuss both of those later.
1 The fact that, right now, forums discussing silicone sex dolls like RealDolls recommend putting talcum powder on the surface to make it feel "more lifelike" is a huge tell: no one kisses a relief machine.
