Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Sex Robots. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sex Robots. Show all posts

Friday, October 15, 2021

The Ethics of Sex Robots

Sterri, A. B., & Earp, B. D. (in press).
In C. Véliz (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of 
Digital Ethics. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.

Abstract 

What, if anything, is wrong with having sex with a robot? For the sake of this chapter, the authors  will  assume  that  sexbots  are  ‘mere’  machines  that are  reliably  identifiable  as such, despite  their  human-like  appearance  and  behaviour.  Under  these  stipulations,  sexbots themselves can no more be harmed, morally speaking, than your dishwasher. However, there may still be something wrong about the production, distribution,  and use of such sexbots. In this  chapter,  the  authors  examine  whether  sex  with robots  is  intrinsically  or  instrumentally wrong  and  critically  assess  different  regulatory  responses.  They  defend  a  harm  reduction approach to  sexbot  regulation,  analogous  to  the  approach that has  been  considered  in  other areas, concerning, for example, drugs and sex work.

Conclusion  

Even  if  sexbots  never  become  sentient,  we  have  good  reasons  to  be  concerned with  their production, distribution, and use. Our seemingly  private activities have social meanings that we do not necessarily intend, but  which can be harmful to others. Sex  can both be  beautiful and  valuable—and  ugly  or  profoundly  harmful.  We  therefore  need  strong  ethical  norms  to guide human sexual behaviour, regardless of the existence of sexbots. Interaction with new technologies  could  plausibly  improve  our  sexual  relationships,  or  make things  worse  (see Nyholm et al. forthcoming, for a theoretical overview). In this chapter, we have explored some ways in which a harm reduction framework may have the potential to bring about the alleged benefits of sexbots with a minimum of associated harms. But whatever approach is taken, the goal should be to ensure that our relationships with robots conduce to, rather than detract from, the equitable flourishing of our fellow human beings.

Friday, January 29, 2021

Moral psychology of sex robots: An experimental study

M. Koverola, et al.
Journal of Brehavioral Robots
Volume 11: Issue 1

Abstract

The idea of sex with robots seems to fascinate the general public, raising both enthusiasm and revulsion. We ran two experimental studies (Ns = 172 and 260) where we compared people’s reactions to variants of stories about a person visiting a bordello. Our results show that paying for the services of a sex robot is condemned less harshly than paying for the services of a human sex worker, especially if the payer is married. We have for the first time experimentally confirmed that people are somewhat unsure about whether using a sex robot while in a committed monogamous relationship should be considered as infidelity. We also shed light on the psychological factors influencing attitudes toward sex robots, including disgust sensitivity and interest in science fiction. Our results indicate that sex with a robot is indeed genuinely considered as sex, and a sex robot is genuinely seen as a robot; thus, we show that standard research methods on sexuality and robotics are also applicable in research on sex robotics.

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Conclusion

Our results successfully show that people condemn a married person less harshly if they pay for a robot sex worker than for a human sex worker. This likely reflects the fact that many people do not consider sex with a robot as infidelity or consider it as “cheating, but less so than with a human person”. These results therefore function as a stepping-stone into new avenues of interesting research that might be appealing to evolutionary and moral psychologists alike. Most likely, sociologists and market researchers will also be interested in increasing our understanding regarding the complex relations between humans and members of new ontological categories (robots, artificial intelligences (AIs), etc.). Future research will offer new possibilities to understand both human sexual and moral cognition by focusing on how humans relate to sexual relationships with androids beyond mere fantasies produced by science fiction like Westworld or Blade Runner. As sex robots in the near future enter mass production, public opinion will presumably stabilize regarding moral attitudes toward sex with robots.


Saturday, January 11, 2020

A Semblance of Aliveness

J. Grunsven & A. Wynsberghe
Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology
Published on December 3, 2019

While the design of sex robots is still in the early stages, the social implications of the potential proliferation of sex robots into our lives has been heavily debated by activists and scholars from various disciplines. What is missing in the current debate on sex robots and their potential impact on human social relations is a targeted look at the boundedness and bodily expressivity typically characteristic of humans, the role that these dimensions of human embodiment play in enabling reciprocal human interactions, and the manner in which this contrasts with sex robot-human interactions. Through a fine-grained discussion of these themes, rooted in fruitful but largely untapped resources from the field of enactive embodied cognition, we explore the unique embodiment of sex robots. We argue that the embodiment of the sex robot is constituted by what we term restricted expressivity and a lack of bodily boundedness and that this is the locus of negative but also potentially positive implications. We discuss the possible benefits that these two dimensions of embodiment may have for people within a specific demographic, namely some persons on the autism spectrum. Our preliminary conclusion—that the benefits and the downsides of sex robots reside in the same capability of the robot, its restricted expressivity and lack of bodily boundedness as we call it—demands we take stock of future developments in the design of sex robot embodiment. Given the importance of evidence-based research pertaining to sex robots in particular, as reinforced by Nature (2017) for drawing correlations and making claims, the analysis is intended to set the stage for future research.

The info is here.

Thursday, April 25, 2019

The Brave New World of Sex Robots

Mark Wolverton
undark.org
Originally posted March 29, 2019

Here is an excerpt:

But as the technology develops apace, so are a host of other issues, including political and social ones (Why such emphasis on feminine bots rather than male? Do sexbots really need a “gender” at all?); philosophical and ethical ones (Is sex with a robot really “sex”? What if the robots are sentient?); and legal ones (Does sex with a robot count as cheating on your human partner?)

Many of these concerns overlap with present controversies regarding AI in general, but in this realm, tied so closely with the most profound manifestations of human intimacy, they feel more personal and controversial. Perhaps as a result, Devlin has a self-admitted tendency at times to slip into somewhat heavy-handed feminist polemics, which can overshadow or obscure possible alternative interpretations to some questions — it’s arguable whether the “Blade Runner” films have “a woman problem,” for example, or whether the prevalence of sexbots with idealized and identifiably feminine aesthetics is solely a result of “male objectification.”

Informed by her background as a computer scientist, Devlin provides excellent nuts-and-bolts technical explanations of the fundamentals of machine learning, neural networks, and language processing that provide the necessary foundation for her explorations of the subject, whose sometimes sensitive nature is eased by her sly sense of humor.

The info is here.

Friday, May 11, 2018

Samantha’s suffering: why sex machines should have rights too

Victoria Brooks
The Conversation
Originally posted April 5, 2018

Here is the conclusion:

Machines are indeed what we make them. This means we have an opportunity to avoid assumptions and prejudices brought about by the way we project human feelings and desires. But does this ethically entail that robots should be able to consent to or refuse sex, as human beings would?

The innovative philosophers and scientists Frank and Nyholm have found many legal reasons for answering both yes and no (a robot’s lack of human consciousness and legal personhood, and the “harm” principle, for example). Again, we find ourselves seeking to apply a very human law. But feelings of suffering outside of relationships, or identities accepted as the “norm”, are often illegitimised by law.

So a “legal” framework which has its origins in heteronormative desire does not necessarily construct the foundation of consent and sexual rights for robots. Rather, as the renowned post-human thinker Rosi Braidotti argues, we need an ethic, as opposed to a law, which helps us find a practical and sensitive way of deciding, taking into account emergences from cross-species relations. The kindness and empathy we feel toward Samantha may be a good place to begin.

The article is here.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Robot sex and consent: Is consent to sex between a robot and a human conceivable, possible, and desirable?

Lily Frank and Sven Nyholm
Artificial Intelligence and Law
September 2017, Volume 25, Issue 3, pp 305–323

Abstract

The development of highly humanoid sex robots is on the technological horizon. If sex robots are integrated into the legal community as “electronic persons”, the issue of sexual consent arises, which is essential for legally and morally permissible sexual relations between human persons. This paper explores whether it is conceivable, possible, and desirable that humanoid robots should be designed such that they are capable of consenting to sex. We consider reasons for giving both “no” and “yes” answers to these three questions by examining the concept of consent in general, as well as critiques of its adequacy in the domain of sexual ethics; the relationship between consent and free will; and the relationship between consent and consciousness. Additionally we canvass the most influential existing literature on the ethics of sex with robots.

The article is here.

Thursday, August 3, 2017

The Trouble With Sex Robots

By Laura Bates
The New York Times
Originally posted

Here is an excerpt:

One of the authors of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics report, Noel Sharkey, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, England, said there are ethical arguments within the field about sex robots with “frigid” settings.

“The idea is robots would resist your sexual advances so that you could rape them,” Professor Sharkey said. “Some people say it’s better they rape robots than rape real people. There are other people saying this would just encourage rapists more.”

Like the argument that women-only train compartments are an answer to sexual harassment and assault, the notion that sex robots could reduce rape is deeply flawed. It suggests that male violence against women is innate and inevitable, and can be only mitigated, not prevented. This is not only insulting to a vast majority of men, but it also entirely shifts responsibility for dealing with these crimes onto their victims — women, and society at large — while creating impunity for perpetrators.

Rape is not an act of sexual passion. It is a violent crime. We should no more be encouraging rapists to find a supposedly safe outlet for it than we should facilitate murderers by giving them realistic, blood-spurting dummies to stab. Since that suggestion sounds ridiculous, why does the idea of providing sexual abusers with lifelike robotic victims sound feasible to some?

The article is here.