Rise of the Sexbots

Some years ago I found myself working with a bunch of very bright management consultants, all with impeccable educational records. It was around the time of the dotcom boom, and conversation frequently veered towards the next big craze – which stock to buy/company to invest in. One of the group was a bit of a computer nerd – actually, he was a lot of a computer nerd – our go-to guy for deep technological problems. So we’re having a quiet beer one night and he offers up some confidential advice from a successful entrepreneur he once worked with.

“You only need to ask one question of any technology, to know whether or not it will be successful,” he said. “Does it aid the spread of porn?”

Well, we all tittered and guffawed.

Meanwhile, he carried on, talking about the history of film-making, and how the very first porno-shoot took place almost as soon as the photograph was invented. When the movies came along, so did the porno-flick.  With the invention of the cine camera came the shooting of home porn. In the 70s, the video cassette appeared. According to our friend’s business model, it was always going to be a success. The same applies to the CD, the DVD and Blu-ray – all meet the spread of porn criteria. Finally, in the 1990s, the internet came of age. Was it going to be a success? I’ll leave that one to you to answer.

My friend’s prophecy 15 years ago was that the mobile phone would morph into a mobile data device with an LCD screen, and because it would be possible to spread porn using such an invention, it too would be a roaring success. We applied the ‘spread of porn’ criteria to many companies and many different technologies, to see which ones we thought might make it. Apart from the mobile phone, Virtual Reality (VR), which was still in its infancy back then, stood out as a clear winner.

Fast-forward to today, and VR has taken amazing steps forward. Porno-VR is already being trialed, and porn stars are already figuring out how to licence their images accordingly. The thing is, in order to become fully immersed in such a virtual world, ancillary devices are a must, for both sexes. They’re on their way too. Here’s a link to an article I stumbled across the other day: SEX ROBOTS

However, it appears all is not well in the world of sex robots. There are certain moral and ethical issues arising around the creation of sentient sex toys. Is it alright, for instance, to produce Sexbots of children? Whoah! I hear you say. For the record, I was uncomfortable even writing that sentence, it does my head in. Once the basic mechanisms have been perfected and Artificial Intelligence modules installed, where do you draw the line? Dogs; sheep; co-workers you fancy who’ve said ‘no’; exes who’ve slapped you with a restraining order.  There is, of course, a campaign against Sexbots. Personally, I think the whole scene is just damn weird, and I’d prefer a real person any day. Would I have an affair if I wasn’t getting any at home, or might I visit a Sexbot Booth for a few hours? That’s coming too.  I can just imagine telling the missus I had a go on a Sexbot but it’s OK, because I programmed it to look and talk like her. I’m pretty sure I’d be sleeping in the car. To be ultra-realistic, my missus-a-like Sexbot would have to have the occasional headache. What would I do then? Cheat on the Sexbot that looks like my missus with another Sexbot that also looks like my missus?!? And what might I do if Sexbot #1 finds out?

The only people who are going to make money out of such a complicated scenario are the lawyers. I have to wonder, did we miss a trick all those years ago? Perhaps the question we should have been asking all along, regarding the potential of a technology business to succeed is this: does it facilitate the spread of lawsuits?

Tags: blog, geek, Information Technology, IT, nerd, sex, virtual reality