WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

[OddHat]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

http://www.news.com.au/story/0' date='23599,22578725-13762,00.html?[/quote']

 

Sex with Real Dolls is here now; of course people will have sex with similarly passable robots.

 

"Marrying" robots, on the other hand, seems unlikely, save for the most deeply geeky and those who want to get attention or annoy people. We can't even get Americans to support the idea of gay or lesbian marriage, let alone making a legally binding ceremonial commitment to an AI.

 

The real question is, why would anyone bother employing Humans if AIs were able to think, perform and interact at a Human level? The day the first cheap and fully functional AIs become available to companies, say goodbye to your future employment prospects.

[Pensativa]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

Pensativa personally knows two AIs, one of whom IS a robot. If the "perfect partners" are AIs, she'd be more likely to regard them as slaves who should be given rights as sentient beings and would never want to own one.

[Ocelot]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

http://www.news.com.au/story/0' date='23599,22578725-13762,00.html?[/quote']

 

Yeah, he's the guy who wrote the Love and Sex with Robots book.

[FenrisUlf]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

The reality is that many people would prefer a predictable, helpful subservient robot. It was the same in the lower tech versions of our own society -- back then, though, we called them "slaves" and reprogrammed them with physical torture, psychological abuse and the odd rape along the way...

 

When will humanity finally accept the idea that slavery is just wrong, no matter what form it takes?

 

Yes, but what if the "slave" is genetically engineered or programmed to want to be a slave? I know several fellows who are looking forward to the day when gengineering goes far enough to make it possible to create androids/gynoids that you can buy.

 

When I asked them if it wouldn't be immoral to own and use a sentient being without any concern for its own desires, I was told that "They'll be engineered to prefer slavery and hate freedom. That means it'll be immoral to not own them."

 

When I brought up the question of abuse, I was told that, "But they'll be like pets, and no decent person ever abuses their beloved pet!"

 

Is it just me, or is there something creepy about that atittude?

[austenandrews]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

It's creepy to seek out something like that. It's less creepy to fantasize about it.

[Drhoz]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

Now... consider that the major business today in organized crime is sex slavery. Women and children are being shipped across global lines at an unprecedented scale - the pure numbers probably rival the old African slave trade, although the percentages are much lower. The major source of the problem is that many countries refuse to legalize easily economical access to sex. While you can find slave brothels in the alleys of every American city, you will be harder pressed to find them in Germany - where the sex workers are liscensed, unionized, and given regular health checks.

 

Why do I seem to side track like that?

 

Because it's really on point. A toy like this goes to that same demand. If you think women don't like sex as much as men, consider that DNA keeps showing in almost every culture on Earth that 33% of children do not have the father the mother claims is the father... Further, go read the book 'Chicken' - an autobiography of a male -HETROSEXUAL- prostitute...

 

The demand is there. A robot toy would lesson that demand. It might help prevent a lot of men from being 'cuckolded'. In fact, a female version should be made to help meet the demand of the male or lesbian consumer.

 

There was a Judge Dredd episode "The Sex-Mek Slasher" where robot hookers were so popular that the human hookers had to pretend to be robots to still get customers. To the point of having a credit-card reader implanted in her shoulder.

 

Dredd caught the guy that was slashing up sex-meks. And arrested the hooker for obtaining money by false pretense

[Marcus Impudite]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

I honestly wouldn't see myself doing the Cherry 2000 thing, even if I didn't already have a real girlfriend. Plastic & Wires vs. The Real Thing? Sorry, it's just not a contest.

[Nyrath]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

I honestly wouldn't see myself doing the Cherry 2000 thing' date=' even if I didn't already have a real girlfriend. Plastic & Wires vs. The Real Thing? Sorry, it's just not a contest.[/quote']

Yes, but perhaps the fact that you cannot see yourself doing the Cherry 2000 thing is because you haven't been living in your mother's basement long enough.

What I mean is that while you are personally immune to the lure of a robot girlfriend, there is sadly a large population of men who have problems relating to other human beings Even moreso relating to female human beings.

 

This would be the target demographic of any manufacturer of robot girls.

[Lucius]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

 

The real question is, why would anyone bother employing Humans if AIs were able to think, perform and interact at a Human level? The day the first cheap and fully functional AIs become available to companies, say goodbye to your future employment prospects.

 

And at that point we find out the answer to the question: Do we, collectively, and especially those of us with power, actually value Human beings and Human lives as ends in themselves, or are people only important as means to other ends?

 

If the former, we have Utopia.

 

If the latter, we have a hell of a lot of violence.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Do I value the palindromedary as a means, or as an end?

[Clonus]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

Yes, but perhaps the fact that you cannot see yourself doing the Cherry 2000 thing is because you haven't been living in your mother's basement long enough.

What I mean is that while you are personally immune to the lure of a robot girlfriend, there is sadly a large population of men who have problems relating to other human beings Even moreso relating to female human beings.

 

This would be the target demographic of any manufacturer of robot girls.

 

Then there's Hugh Grant. He had an actual relationship with an exceptionally beautiful woman. He chose to pay a not especially attractive prostitute for a meaningless and impersonal sex act. I can only assume the appeal was that it would be a meaningless and impersonal thing, because that was what he felt like at that moment. Sometimes, men don't want to wait, and don't want to deal.

[Zeropoint]

Re: WWYD: The Perfect Partner (potentially controversial)

 

You also should be aware that there are plenty of otherwise normal people who, for one reason or another, just can't seem to find a romantic partner. This population, obviously, is very low-visibility. You wouldn't look at them and their life situation and conclude that they're permanently single. Perhaps, it might dawn on you one day that you've known them for years and never heard them talk about a girlfriend/boyfriend.

 

Those people would also be a market for a perfect partner.