Company Unveils Personalized Anime Robot Girl

MrSeb writes "It seems, as a culture, we have a deep-seated interest in robots and automatons, and if we can love an animal or other non-humanoid creature, what's to stop us from falling in love with a robot? Introducing Meka Robotics' S2 Humanoid Head: It has seven degrees of freedom, high-resolution FireWire cameras in each eye, zero-backlash Harmonic Drive gearing in the neck, and a ton of unnervingly-human movements and postures. She weighs 7.6kg (16.7lbs), has a pair of luminous, waggling doggy-like ears, and can be attached to a Meka torso and arm, if you prefer your robots to be slightly more corporeal. The girly, anime face is just a custom skin, incidentally: Meka will customize the shell to look like anything you desire. We're told that they value their client's confidentiality — and more importantly they don't judge. Powered by the open-source and extensible M3 control software, the S2 head (and body and arm) could be quite easily upgraded to use Hooman Samani's artificial endocrine and psychological models — and if you had the choice of falling in love with an amorphous, decidedly odd-looking furball, or a cute, perky anime girl, which would you choose?"

Comments

Women have it hard in the future

[goose-incarnated]

Seriously, they do

The feminist activists convinced women that they can act just as men do, resulting in this free-sex utopia. I think it was Freakonomics that pointed out that the price of sex has dropped since the 30's. Prostitutes used to cost more than the median monthly wage, now they cost the price of a meal - so if you're single and horny, which would you rather do - go on a first date and *maybe* get laid by the second date or simply pay the price of that meal and get laid?

Of course, men pursue sex - that's how we are built - and in the past we needed to commit to a woman to get assured of sex on a regular basis. Now with feminists making the argument that society won't judge women who are promiscuous, some women believe them, lowering the value of women in general. If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.

Just for sex, though, even porn causes a drop in the value of women; whats going to happen when VR means that you can have a virtual g/friend for sex? That's an even further drop.

Yes, of course there will be men who still want a real women, but you cannot escape the fact that demand is dropping.

Re:Women have it hard in the future

[Asic Eng]

Well the price of sex sinking is certainly a good thing, it means both men and women have more of it. Also while I find the "feminism = free sex" claim more than dubious (that's really not how it happened historically) - feminist would likely argue that women should not be valued as providers of sex, but for their skills and accomplishments. It's true though that this can be bad news for those women who have neither.

Women have more options today - they don't need to get married in order to have an income, they can pursue their own careers and their own goals in life. So while demand from men for marriage has dropped, the same applies for women, too.

Now neither men nor women are forced to have a relationship or enter marriage in order to have an income or to get sex. That changes many things and that's not necessarily easy. Overall it's good to have freedom to chose, though.

Re:Women have it hard in the future

[dkleinsc]

If I'm looking for a long-term relationship, I expect Mary to put out by the third date or so, and if she doesn't, I'll find my long-term relationship with Susan, who *will* put out.

Or, you know, I might realize that in any successful long-term relationship, there's a lot of factors that matter more than how quickly I can get my partner into bed. For instance, do I enjoy spending time with Mary? Do we have some common interests? Do we have good and meaningful conversations? Can we figure out a way of working when work needs to get done? If this relationship really does well, and we end up hitched for the rest of our lives, we're going to spend far more time dealing with that stuff than whether Mary put out on the third date.

Re:Love

[Anonymous Coward]

Alcohol is the cure for shyness, if you still feel self conscious... Shut up and keep drinking!

Re:Love

[Geeky]

You pay her. You see her quite regularly. You sort of become friends but deep down you know she's telling you what you want to hear to keep you happy - all part of the customer service. Then she says she's given up working but will still see you - you're a gray area. Since there was no need for her to say that, you believe her. You see her more often. You fall in love. You ask her out. She says she doesn't want to complicate things while money's involved but she's looking for a normal office job. You suspect she's still working. Although you only see her once every couple of weeks you hear from her every couple of days and get insecure if you don't. Half of you wants to know the truth - is it just what it is, or is there something real there? You dream of a future together but she's probably laughing at you behind your back and all the way to the bank while continuing to provide service as usual to anyone who's got the cash.

So, in summary, go easy on the paid girls.

(true story, by the way. happened to a, er, friend)