Campaign Against Sex Robots

[Syt]

http://arstechnica.co.uk/gadgets/2015/09/sexbots-with-a-detrimental-effect-on-society-should-be-banned-say-researchers/

Sexbots with a "detrimental effect on society" should be banned, say researchers

A robotics researcher at the UK's De Montfort University has called for sex robots—or robostitutes as they're more commonly known—to be banned completely. The researcher, Kathleen Richardson, says that the development of realistic sexbots "further objectifies women and children" and reinforces the "perceived inferiority of women and children"—and thus they must be banned.

Richardson's Campaign Against Sex Robots comes at a time when a number of academics, robotics companies, and the adult industries are looking to develop increasingly realistic sex dolls. Earlier in the year, we wrote about RealDoll—a purveyor of fine, silicone sex dolls—and its efforts to develop a robotic, artificially intelligent head that can be swapped onto existing RealDoll bodies. Vanity Fair recently published an interesting piece titled Is This the Dawn of the Sexbots?. As far back as 2011, I wrote a story about one researcher, Hooman Samani, who was working on lovotics—an emerging area of AI that deals in developing meaningful relationships between humans and robots.

Later this year, True Companion (NSFW) will reportedly be the first company to sell sex robots, priced at $6,995 (£4,500). There's a female model called Roxxxy (original, I know), and a male model called Rocky.
The Campaign Against Sex Robots, which currently only has two researchers on its roster—Richardson, plus Erik Billing from the University of Skövde in Sweden—wants to curtail sexbot research and development. The Campaign is concerned that, over the last few years, AI researchers, adult industries, and the media have generally focused on the positive aspects of sexbots, "without critically examining their detrimental effect on society."

The Campaign's manifesto is fairly long, but here are a few key points:

- We believe the development of sex robots further objectifies women and children.
- The vision for sex robots is underscored by reference to prostitute-john exchange which relies on recognizing only the needs and wants of the buyers of sex, the sellers of sex are not attributed subjectivity and reduced to a thing (just like the robot).
- The development of sex robots and the ideas to support their production show the immense horrors still present in the world of prostitution which is built on the "perceived" inferiority of women and children and therefore justifies their uses as sex objects.
- We propose that the development of sex robots will further reduce human empathy that can only be developed by an experience of mutual relationship.

To remedy these problems, the Campaign Against Sex Robots will "support the development of ethical technologies that reflect human principles of dignity, mutuality and freedom," and attempt to convince the world at large that "all human beings regardless of age, gender and class have the right to have their subjectivity recognized." Richardson has also written a research paper, published in the September issue of the ACM SIGCAS newsletter, that further investigates the parallels between sexbots and prostitution.

While the Campaign has received a lot of press, the two researchers face a very steep uphill struggle. It isn't that Richardson's argument—that sexbots might further objectify women and children—is necessarily wrong or misguided, though for now we'll leave that one to the academics and lawmakers to discuss. Rather, the main problem is that sexbots, perhaps even more so than killer robots, are utterly inevitable.

Still, even if the Campaign Against Sex Robots can't secure an outright ban against robostitutes, it may still be useful for the rapidly tumescing sex doll industry, and society in general, to have a counterweight that keeps the conversation balanced and honest.

https://campaignagainstsexrobots.wordpress.com/

We believe in the benefits of robots and technologies to our society and human cultures, but want to ensure that robotics develops ethically and that we do not reproduce inequalities with their development that could further reinforce disturbing human lived experiences.

We are not proposing to extend rights to robots. We do not see robots as conscious entities. We propose instead that robots are a product of human consciousness and creativity and human power relationships are reflected in the production, design and proposed uses of these robots. As a result, we oppose any efforts to develop robots that will contribute to gender inequalities in society.

[Barrister]

[Martinus]

- We believe the development of sex robots further objectifies women and children.

WTF, no hot guy sex robots? 

[Valmy]

WTF, no hot guy sex robots? 

Um read the article. There is a male sex robot being sold named 'Rocky'

But nobody cares about objectifying men. We are subhuman beasts of burden, fit for military service and manual labor. Ok that might not be the actual reason.

[11B4V]

Yes they should.

[Syt]

WTF, no hot guy sex robots? 

Um read the article. There is a male sex robot being sold named 'Rocky'

But nobody cares about objectifying men. We are subhuman beasts of burden, fit for military service and manual labor. Ok that might not be the actual reason.

On that topic, see my recent post in the Vienna election thread

[garbon]

Um read the article. There is a male sex robot being sold named 'Rocky'

If the female bot is any indication, the male one will be NOT hott!

But nobody cares about objectifying men. We are subhuman beasts of burden, fit for military service and manual labor. Ok that might not be the actual reason.

Buzzfeed commentators cry about the double standards where buzzfeed will objectify men but will decry objectification of women. I'm like don't get between me and looking at photos of hot men.

[Savonarola]

I didn't think anyone could come up with worse neologisms than "Gluon" and "Bromance", but:

lovotics

robostitutes

I was wrong.   

[The Brain]

I agree with the shrill scientician that we should ban everything anyone finds yucky.

[Barrister]

Arguably, a child-looking sex robot would qualify as "other visual representation... the dominant purpose of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years" and thus qualify as child pornography and be illegal on that basis.

[Admiral Yi]

So this broad must be opposed to vibrators too.

[Razgovory]

I didn't think anyone could come up with worse neologisms than "Gluon" and "Bromance", but:

lovotics

robostitutes

I was wrong.   

Is there another type of "Gluon", that isn't in particle physics?

[Monoriu]

All this campaign seems to do is to help spread the word that these robots exist 

[The Brain]

Technically they sexist.

[Duque de Bragança]

Does this violate Azimov's Three Laws of Robotics? If so, how? If not, please explain too.