I find myself thinking a lot about sex robots these days. In this, I am far from alone. Over the last few years, the dolls and toys that people keep in the very darkest recesses of their closets have found their way into the light. With robotics and artificial intelligence improving at light speed, several companies have touted the arrival of sexual robotics with the launch of impressive interactive toys that can learn, move, and, to various degrees, simulate intercourse.
One might quibble about whether the toys are really robots, or about the level of artificial intelligence they harbour. Some critics see them as creepy and pathetic upgrades on sex dolls, no replacement for human affection. Many others believe sex and intimacy represent frontiers that robots will never convincingly cross, and that human intimacy will never be challenged by robots. And yet the speed at which technologies, lately robots and AI, have, time and again, achieved what critics said was impossible and replaced tasks and labours that they said was irreplaceable, suggests to me that we should take the latest technologies very seriously indeed.
Those who do take sex robots seriously often line up on the negative side. At UNSW, our Grand Challenges Program recently hosted Professor Kathleen Richardson, one of the founders of the Campaign Against Sex Robots. Richardson’s ideas are textbook sex-negative feminism. She even declared Andrea Dworkin and Katherine McKinnon to be her heroes. To Richardson and many others, sex robots represent the latest attempt to objectify and commodify women’s bodies.
Could there be an upside, though, to the new technologies? Given the profound conflict and misery that so often surround sex, intimacy, and relationships, the question is well worth asking. At the recent Festival of Dangerous Ideas in Sydney, I had the great pleasure of discussing some of the implications with criminologist Dr Xanthé Mallett, sexologist Dr Nikki Goldstein, and journalist Natasha Mitchell.
Listen here for the full audio of Natasha’s “Science Friction” podcast.
