by David Levy
Sex Robots for Hire
While much of the initial fascination with sexbots will be prompted by curiosity, it is reasonable to expect some interest to stem from advice given by therapists to their patients. People experiencing psychosexual problems will no longer need and lack the services of human sex surrogates—they can instead be referred to clinics where the surrogates are robots. This does, of course, raise all sorts of ethical and legal questions, especially in the litigious climate of the United States, but setting legal problems aside (and they will exist on a much smaller scale, if at all, in many countries), it seems to me inevitable that sex robots will be employed for therapeutic purposes.
This naturally raises the issue of cyberprostitution. The johns and janes who pay for sex benefit in various ways from their encounters with prostitutes (one form of sex without human love), so they will equally benefit in various ways from sex with robots (another form of sex without human love). And robot prostitutes might become a popular method for people to learn sexual technique before entering into a human relationship. With a robot prostitute, the control of disease is implicit—simply remove the active parts and put them in the disinfecting machine. Cyberprostitutes, on the basis of the fees received for their services, could play an important role in the growth of the robotics industry and the ability of this industry to continually develop more advanced products. Certainly, there are some questions to be answered by the lawmakers of the future regarding robot prostitution. Should it be illegal to have a bevy of robot prostitutes (a robot brothel)? Why should it be, since all current laws apply only to human prostitutes? And if such commercial transactions are made illegal, will the Mafia attempt to control the manufacture of sexbots, spreading their availability and making them a source of huge revenues?
What Will Our Sex Lives Be Like?
There are obvious social benefits in robot sex—the likely reduction in teenage pregnancy, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, and pedophilia. And there are also clear personal benefits when sexual boundaries widen, ushering in new sexual opportunities, some bizarre, others exciting. In “Impacts of Robotic Sex,” Joe Snell pointed to various ways in which robot sex could alter human relationships and human sexuality:
Techno-virgins will emerge. An entire generation of humans may grow up never having had sex with other humans.
Heterosexual people may use same-sex sexbots to experiment with homosexual relations. Or gay people might use othersex sexbots to experiment with heterosexuality.
Robotic sex may become “better” than human sex. Like many other technologies that have replaced human endeavors, robots may surpass human technique; because they would be programmable, sexbots would meet each individual’s needs.16
An important aspect of human sexuality is the possibility of failure or denial, making sex and the enjoyment of it somewhat capricious. In order to be better than human sex, the performance of sexbots might need to contain those subtleties of human sexuality that will enable them to mimic this capriciousness. Things that are always great can become boring, but the anticipation, doubt, and hope of each sexual experience can be instilled in their human owners if the sexbot is designed with these subtleties.
There are many professions that call for being absent from one’s sex partner for varying periods of time. Robots can be the perfect substitutes in these situations, satisfying one’s sexual needs without creating any cause for concern about disease and fidelity. For sailors, who a century ago would have been traditional customers for dames de voyage,* a charming female robot would be a great alternative to masturbation or a visit to the local brothel when ashore. Ships’ pursers will perhaps be loaning them out like library books, instead of administering penicillin jabs for the needy.
There are many other situations in which a sexbot would be the ideal solution. For those who lose a spouse or a long-term partner, whether to illness, death, or as one of the casualties of a broken relationship, robots could provide the answer. As one ages, it becomes clear that maximal sexual intimacy sometimes takes a very long time to evolve—years, even—and that it redefines itself along the evolution of a loving relationship. Robots will be able to achieve this evolutionary process more quickly than humans, by retaining all the memories of living with their human other, analyzing the relationship characteristics exhibited by their human, and by themselves studying huge databases of relationships and how they are affected by different behaviors, then tuning their own behavior to the needs of their human mate. Humans often do not know what they really want or need, so intuitive robot sex partners are a real requirement, able to discern whether their owner really wants sex or would prefer a nice glass of wine or a walk in the park.
Thought-provoking? Certainly. But far-fetched? Not at all.
Conclusion
Imagine a world in which robots are just like us (almost). A world in which the boundary between our perceptions of robots and our perceptions of our fellow humans has become so blurred that most of us treat robots as though they are mental, social, and moral beings. A world in which the general perception of robot creatures is raised to the level of our perception of biological creatures. When this happens, when robot creatures are generally perceived as being similar to biological creatures, the effect on society will be enormous. It will be as though hordes of people from a hitherto-unknown and far-off land have emigrated to our shores, a people who behave like us in many ways but who are very clearly different. These hordes will not pass Shakespeare’s sixteenth-century test—“If you prick us, do we not bleed?”—but in most other respects they will appear to be just like us. And their capacity for serving as our companions, our lovers, and our life partners will in many ways be superior to those of mere mortals. I am convinced that this is how the world will be by the year 2050.
The robots of the middle of this century will not be exactly like us, but close. In terms of their outward appearance and behavior, they will be designed to be almost indistinguishable from us to the vast majority of the human population. How will it affect us when we are no longer instinctively able to tell robot from human at a glance? How will it affect the way in which we interact with someone we’re meeting for the very first time if we’re not certain whether that someone is indeed a someone—or instead a something? Might the differences, such as they will be, between humans and robots create a new form of discrimination? And if so, who (or what) will be the group that is discriminated against? Will we humans be thinking and uttering the phrase “You’re only a robot” more often or less often than “You’re only a human”? And what will be the impact on society when robots reach a level of sophistication, at which they are able to engender and sustain feelings of romantic love in their humans?
I believe that the social and psychological benefits will be enormous. Almost everyone wants someone to love, but many people have no one. If this natural human desire can be satisfied for everyone who is capable of loving, surely the world will be a much happier place. Many who would otherwise have become social misfits, social outcasts, or even worse will instead be better-balanced human beings. And those who are devastated by the breakdown of their most significant human relationship will be able to speed their emotional recovery by rapidly indulging their desire to love, courtesy of a robot with the appropriately chosen specifications.
Having robots take on the role of partner in relationships with human beings is a natural continuation of the trend in robotics research and development that has already passed through various stages: from industrial robots to service robots to virtual pets to companion and caregiver robots for the elderly. The next stage in this trend is the design and construction of partner robots, sufficiently humanlike and sufficiently appealing in various ways to be considered as our true partners. This might happen first over the Internet, since already there are significant numbers of people falling in love with others they meet in that way, and there is no reason why this phenomenon cannot extend to artificial partners they meet in that same en
vironment, including robots. I expect that many people will find this idea distasteful at first, just as many have found the idea of same-sex love, same-sex physical relationships, and same-sex marriage distasteful. But times change. And just as sexual mores relating to homosexuality, oral sex, fornication, and masturbation have changed so much with time, so attitudes and laws relating to human-robot relationships will similarly develop with time. I believe that the changes in attitudes toward robots will be quite rapid, because social change nowadays happens at a very much faster rate than ever before. This is why I expect marriage with robots to be legalized in some countries by the middle of this century.
Some of the implications of love and marriage with robots raise interesting ethical issues. Although humanoid robots are artificial people, will the humans who fall in love with robots somehow reduce the degree of artificiality, by endowing their humanoids with a measure of moral standing? Will it still be so clear that the status of humanoids is firmly “not alive,” or will we come to regard them as having a twilight status as “kind of alive,” “almost alive,” or something similar? As humanoid robots become increasingly sophisticated and increasingly humanlike in their appearance and behavior, the notion “kind of alive” will become an increasingly appropriate epithet for us to apply to these robots, until eventually it becomes almost irresistible to think of them and treat them as being “almost alive.” And with the inevitably changing view of what constitutes “almost alive,” robots will become regarded more and more as our peers, worthy of our affection, of our love. As a result of this change in perception of the “aliveness” of humanoids, one of the ethical conundrums that will face our children and grandchildren relates to what sorts of rights these robots will deserve. The debate on roboethics has up to now been very much focused on issues that we regard as the unethical use of robots. But what about the unethical treatment of robots? Should we not in this debate be speaking also on behalf of the robots of the future? I believe that we should. As the idea of humans having robot partners and even marrying robots gains currency, we should consider this prospect not only in terms of what it will mean for society but also what it will mean for the robots when they have consciousness? Today most of us disapprove of cultures where a man can buy a bride or otherwise acquire one without taking into account her wishes. Will our children and their children similarly disapprove of marrying a robot purchased at the local store or over the Internet? Or will the fact that the robot can be set to fall in virtual love with its owner make this practice universally acceptable?
While the topics of love and marriage with robots are certain to lead to much heated debate in the years ahead, still more controversy is likely to be generated by the concept of sex with robots. The rate of development in this field will be even more rapid than the changes in attitudes toward robots, with the advent of sexual robots being a major cause rather than a result of attitude changes. This will be due in part to the enormous sums of money that the developers of such products will be able to reap, and partly because of the enormous worldwide interest in and desire for better sex.
I do not foresee the future, with robots as our partners, as totally without its problems. One aspect that I find scary is not the fact that robots will be able to perform almost any job better than the most accomplished human—to be the world’s best surgeons, lawyers, politicians, chefs—but that in some ways they will be better husbands, wives, and lovers than our fellow human beings. This raises an important psychological problem, that of our feeling threatened by the possibilities of human-robot sexual interactions because there is a better husband/wife/lover—better in the bedroom, at least, and readily available for purchase for the equivalent of a hundred dollars or so. This fear is a natural reaction, akin to the common response that many people still have to sex toys, and to vibrators in particular. Many straight men, for example, feel that a vibrator is a threat to them, believing it could replace them as their woman’s preferred sexual partner. Such a feeling is not helped by our contemporary sexual culture, in which the need for a man to be able to sexually please and satisfy his woman is promoted so widely in books and other media and is often the subject of boastful conversation. Put simply, most men would feel inadequate if they believed that their woman enjoyed better orgasms courtesy of a vibrator or a robot than those that the men themselves could provide on a regular basis. But in the final analysis, I believe that one of the great benefits of sexual robots will be their ability to teach lovemaking skills, so that men who do feel inadequate will be able to take unlimited lessons, in private, from robot lovers who possess an unrivaled level of knowledge of sexual techniques and psychosexual problems, combined with great skills as sensitive, patient teachers. This importance of robots, as a means of teaching and enhancing sexual technique should not be underestimated. So many relationships founder because of dissatisfaction in the bedroom, and so many men suffer, as do their partners, because they are unable for whatever reason (including embarrassment) to work to improve their lovemaking skills.
Just as many straight men fear the effect that vibrators might have on their sex lives, so many straight women will deny any need for a vibrator because they already feel completely sexually satisfied by their regular sex partner(s), and for those women it might be the case that whatever additional sexual pleasures robots can offer them will not be of sufficient interest to encourage participation in robot sex on a regular basis. But the psychology literature, both popular and academic, is sufficiently replete with data on sexually frustrated women and the sales of vibrators are burgeoning to such an extent that we cannot doubt the enormous popularity of robot lovers when they become commercially available. And some women will, of course, join the ranks of those who wish to avail themselves of their robot’s sexual-teaching skills.
Given that sex with robots will inevitably become a popular human activity, I feel it is important to consider the ethical implications of such encounters—the implications for the human participant in a sexual encounter with a robot, the implications for those (humans) who are emotionally close to the human participant, the implications for society as a whole, and even the implications for the robot participant.
For the human participant, some of the benefits of robot sex create their own ethical justification. The capability of robots to teach all known aspects of sexual technique will turn receptive students into virtuoso lovers. No longer will a partner in a human-human relationship need to suffer from lousy sex, mediocre sex, or anything less than great sex. Marriages and partnerships that today are in trouble in the bedroom will no longer be at risk, thanks to the practical instruction in sex that will be available to all. And, having taken as much instruction as is necessary to enable a participant to satisfy their human partner, the student’s sexual confidence will be boosted, thereby creating a more balanced human being.
Another advantage of robot sex will come from robots’ therapeutic capabilities, in helping those who suffer from psychosexual hang-ups. Most people cannot afford to seek professional help in resolving such problems, and among those who could have access to human therapists, a significant proportion are too embarrassed to discuss their sex lives with others. But robots, in addition to being excellent sex teachers, will also be sympathetic counselors, curing far more cases of psychosexual inadequacy than human therapists ever could. Yet another service for the human participant is the possibility of being able to experiment with different sexualities. People who are uncertain of their own sexuality will be able to try out same-sex and opposite-sex robots in total anonymity.
For those humans whose partners are sexually involved with robots, there can be ethical advantages over and above the joy of sex with improving and skilled lovers. The availability of regular sex with a robot will dramatically reduce the incidence of infidelity as we know it today, though some human spouses and lovers might consider robot sex to be just as unfaithful as sex with another person. Or will sexual ethics come to regard encounters with robots as being as
innocent as the use of a vibrator is regarded today?
One of the effects on society of robot sex might be that the fundamental difference between the sexual motivations of men and women undergoes a rethink from both the male and the female points of view. As robots become not only our lovers but also our tutors in lovemaking skills, they could enhance the sexual experience for many men and women by increasing, for each sex, the benefits and feelings most often appreciated by the opposite sex. Sexual robots could encourage men toward a deeper exploration of their feelings of emotional attraction to their human sex partners, while women could be encouraged and taught how to achieve greater physical pleasure from sex. The result of all this tuition would be higher levels of pleasure and satisfaction, both for men and for women, not only in their couplings with robots but also in their human sexual encounters.
For society as a whole, there are clear social and ethical benefits in making sexbots available to those who cannot refrain from indulging in illegal and antisocial sexual practices. In some cases the sexbot will be able to provide the satisfaction necessary to assuage the craving and whatever therapy is necessary to cure the underlying problem that causes the illegal or antisocial practice. And in any event the human will no longer be breaking the bounds of social convention or breaking the law.
