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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.
I'd rather have my Companion Cube!
=Smidge=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu0TXl15PgU
of why humans fall in love with humans.
Because they are not robots.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
Can't wait to get my own Lucy Liu bot!
I love lamp!
Help, help!! There's a GIRL posting on slashdot!!
which is totally what she said
Hey Baby, Wanna kill all humans?
Well, there are people that are having sex with inanimate dolls (real dolls plug here), It would not be far fetched that someone would be amenable to the idea and even build a business out of having sex with robots. There are more advantages than using the regular purveyors. It's more sanitary, there are more control on the looks of the service provider and you only have to perform maintenance every so often.
I think that "love" is too much of a word for it. Infatuated or having "a crush" would be more appropriate. It's going to be something carnal and not with meaning. It would take a long time for us humans to develop enough intelligence in robots for us to have a "meaningful relationship" with them.
Vi havas e-poston.
Yes, exactly, 10 ways. We are talking about robots here, we have to use their number system.
well, that's got to be the stupidest question I've ever read. OF COURSE WE DO.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
I can only assume that anyone who imagines being "in love" with a machine is severely emotionally stunted. What is love without the need, and willingness to sacrifice? What is love without emotional exposure? What is love without the risk of loss?
It is totally okay with me if this guy wants to fuck animatronics, but he doesn't do himself a service by confusing that with love.
-Peter
Just a random thought here but thinking along the lines of the Futurama reasoning for "Don't date Robots!!!" and mixing in Idiocracy evolution logic two wrongs might make a right. If you give all the stupid people robots to have sex with they can't make more stupid people. Hell for the real stupid people we can just recycle the robots.
A robot must never harm a human, unless "kinky mode" is enabled.
Blank until
It is easy to love someone or something.
It is harder to feel loved.
And harder still to feel loved by something you know does not think or feel.
For that reason, humans will continue to feel loved (or not loved) by other humans more easily than they can connect with inanimate objects.
Does that mean that there will be 110010 ways to leave your (robot) lover?
Toss a Teddy Ruxpin speaker into a Real-Doll and I'm good to go!
Terrorists can't threaten a country's freedom and democracy. Only lawmakers and voters can do that.
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.
So British AI researcher David Levy somehow got involved in the field of robotics without ever reading/viewing any of the hundreds of pieces of sci-fi on this exact topic (ie. he thinks this is an original idea of his)? Or perhaps he is aware of the sci-fi, but is egotistical enough to think that a researcher talking nebulously about the far future is somehow different than sci-fi.
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.
How about:
You just deny the ACK, Jack
Kill the PS Fan, Stan
Use the "no battery" ploy, Roy
Electricity ain't free
Just short out the bus, Gus
Don't need to discuss Mussss
Just decrypt the key, Lee
And getcho self free...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
As for love... Given how many people cannot tell the difference between a human and a dog,
Look I was drunk, alright?! And the dog came on to me first!
The enemies of Democracy are
1. Our egos are too big to even recognize the competition. Men see the good-looking men in the magazines every bit as much as women see the good-looking women. But do we go to the same efforts to emulate? "I'm perfect the way I am. Any woman would be lucky to have me. My ego told me so." Most men have no clue how to dress or groom themselves, myself included.
2. Women tend to claim to want more "emotionally responsive" men, but my real-world observation tends to contradict that claim. Perhaps someone's done an actual scientific study, but I have not noticed men who are in touch with their feminine side having much luck in the meat-marketplace. Cliches such as "Nice guys finish last", and "Women prefer assholes" tend to support that theory.
My point here is that the necessity of competing with robots for "emotional responsiveness" is probably overstated (assuming a suitably emo robot could be designed), because what women claim to prefer, and what women actually prefer (based on their choices in men) tend to be vastly different.
3. I think many men would tend to be satisfied with a physical relationship with a robot, to the point of preferring that over the head-games provided by most women. This is especially true because there would be no such thing as a robot that is "out of your league". If you could be nailing a convincing, if robotic supermodel, would you prefer an average-looking emotionally-unstable human female over that smokin' hot robot?
You may choose to dismiss point #3, but look at the success of prostitutes. A quick perusal of craigslist.org confirms that there are a nontrivial supply of men out there who are happy to pay a few hundred bucks for a 1-hour tryst with a woman they know would never speak to them absent the donation to her college fund.
I think where I come out on this is that women will face more competition from robots than men will face from them. I am not in the field of robotics, but my software experience tells me that it is probably easier to engineer a convincing sex toy than a convincing "emotionally responsive" companion. And that's assuming that anyone has figured out what type of "emotional responsiveness" women truly desire (rather than claim to desire).
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
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.
No man in the world would ever give the time of day to a real woman ever again.
That's ok, their robot goes all night long and never leaves the toilet seat up.
I know this sounds crazy but it's really true ( imo, though I'm only 18 so judge for yourself ), without perfect AI I don't think any non shallow male could claim to 'love' his robot. This might just be me...
Well let me be the first to present it in this manner.
01) No PMS
02) No hormonal imbalances
03) No maxxed out credit cards
04) No cars driven til the motor burns up due to lack of oil
05) No bitching when your with your male friends at a sports/whatever event.
06) No lies
07) No drugs
08) No veneral disease
09) No coming home to an empty house, bank account, garage, investment accounts
10) perfect food, sex, massage, and SILENCE when ever you want it.
Young men tend to believe in love, older men become jaded, and ACQUIRE
the above list of 10 things as I have.
4 decades of harsh reality tends to fill in the above list.
Here is to hoping you retain your innocent unjaded view for your entire life.
~Adios~
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I hate to introduce a serious note, but there's people out there who could benefit from a little bot-love. People who are disabled, deformed and badly disfigured have traditionally had a lot of trouble finding partners.
Masturbation and prostitutes are often their only access to sex. Love is something for other people. A mechanical counterfeit might be more acceptable than the alternative.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
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.
50 Ways To Leave Your Robot Lover
The problem is inside your CPU it said to me
The solution is quite easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you make the move to version 3
There must be 110010 ways to leave your robot lover
It said that it was waterproof and inter-cooled
Furthermore, it stated it had cruise control and auto-lube
But I was most impressed with the self-inflating boobs
There must be 110010 ways to leave your robot lover
110010 ways to leave your robot lover
CHORUS:
You just deny the ACK, Jack
Kill the PS Fan, Stan
Use the "no battery" ploy, Roy
Electricity ain't free
Just short out the bus, Gus
Don't need to discuss MUX
Just decrypt the key, Lee
And getcho self free...
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
The upshot is that it is possible to replicate the object of a man's sexual desires much more easily than the object of a woman's sexual desires, since a man's sexual desires are almost entirely physical. For a replicated male robot to be uber-sexy, it would have to be smart, funny, suave, and have high social status, wealth and power. Obviously, that may all be possible one day but we can all agree that that day is much, much farther off. In the meantime, the asymmetry is going to create a real problem for women.
One caveat: this assumes that sexbots for men will become available sooner than perfect virtual reality. Once we have VR a la the Matrix, robots as sex-replacements will be moot anyway.
A-Bomb
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