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The Future of Love and Sex - Robots
nem75 writes "The New York Times has a review of British AI researcher David Levy's book 'Love and Sex with Robots'. He claims that within a span of about 50 years the day will come when people could actually fall in love with life-like robots. While this may seem far fetched at first, he has some pretty interesting views. 'He begins with what scientists know about why humans fall in love with other humans. There are 10 factors, he writes, including mystery, reciprocal liking, and readiness to enter a relationship. Why can't these factors apply to robots, too?' The case he builds goes much further though, and certainly provides food for thought." Update: 12/14 16:16 GMT by Z : This article is very similar to a discussion we had recently.
of why humans fall in love with humans.
Because they are not robots.
"I only speak the truth"
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Wait, people are going on e-dates through webcams?
As for the Real Doll, my guess is that women will respond with ever more drastic measures to look attractive (just as women respond that way to air-brushed magazine pictures of women that don't represent how even those models look cf. Dove). Now, if robots can be more emotionally responsive than men, will men do something drastic to compete with robots?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
No need to wait. Millions of people are having sex with robots today. The problem with people seeing this is that they they forget that robot is not synonymous with android, and they miss the fact that it is women that are the primary customers in the robot sex industry.
A vibrator IS a robot. It may be a simple one, but a robot none the less. The trick will be to see if they can get men to buy into robot sex as much as women have already embraced it.
As for love... Given how many people cannot tell the difference between a human and a dog, I have no doubt that getting people confused between an even semi-realistic looking android and a human would be easy and common.
Regarding 2: I think you may like this post of mine.
You are correct that "emotionally responsive" is an imprecise term. It's kind of like "genetically fit". What's "genetically fit"? Well, whatever *turns out* to work at passing on genes. You can't know it in advance. Likewise, "emotionally responsive" doesn't necessarily mean wussy -- it means more like, "acting with knowledge of what women will really like, irrespective of claimed desires".
I would absolutely agree with you that what women claim to want and what they really want are far apart -- more than 42 trillion km. It's rather frustrating to see them espouse feminist notions of how men should act, and then boink the first guy who violates them all. The theory that "Women give flawed advice to cull the guys who actually listen to it from the dating pool" fits the data a bit too well. Look at the Spice Girls song: "If you want to be my lover, you gotta first be my friend". What expert seducer doesn't find that advice abhorrently wrong?
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
This is one of those odd areas where men are the ones who are behind, as far as social acceptability of a sexual practice goes.
Vibrators are talked about and alluded to in a largely positive light in TV and movies all the time. Generally, at least for a couple generations now, the idea of a woman with a vibrator has been a turn on, or at least not a turn off. Women have Mary Kay-esque sex toy parties.
How many references to sex toys/masturbation aids for men are there in popular culture, compared with those for women? Far, far fewer, I would bet. What percentage are positive? Barely more than 0%, I'm sure. Being a guy and having any items of that sort is seen as something to be embarrassed about. Hell, I'm a guy, and I'm aware of the double-standard, and the idea still kind of weirds me out.
Socialization is a powerful thing.
You've obviously never read anything about evolutionary psychology. A good place to start is The Moral Animal by Robert Right and The Third Chimpanzee and Why Sex Is Fun by Jared Diamond. Men and women have entirely different reproductive strategies for entirely biological reasons, and this is born out in their different sexual behaviors and desires. It's you, I'm afraid, who is suffering from 'social conditioning'.
A-Bomb