“The initial forays by robotocists into the world of fully interactive autonomous robots focused on entertainment with creations as simple as robot toys robots pets, and robots that play sports. Simple electronic cats and dogs have been shown to provide psychological enrichment for humans, being both pleasurable and relaxing to play with” (Levy 9). For the time being, at least, it seems that robotics is well concerned with finding a way to provide true, satisfying companionship to human beings.
This is not a purely or even primarily sexual pursuit. In fact, one of the main uses for intelligent robots going forward may be as company for demographics that typically find themselves suffering from loneliness like the elderly, developmentally disabled or those lacking in traditional social graces. Phillip K. Dick presciently gave this scenario a face by way of the character Isidore whose primary company are the various machines which occupy his apartment and Buster Friendly on television: “'But,' Isidore said, 'it's good to have neighbors. Heck, until you came along I didn't have any.' And that was no fun, god knew” (Androids 62).
Robots that are designed for companionship and company are considered by many robotics-developers to be imminent in the relatively near future: “To researchers like Turkle, the widespread deployment of social robots is as risky as it is inevitable. With some analysts estimating a $15 billion market for personal robots by 2015, the demand for expressive machines is expected to be voracious” (Sofge).
However, while company is one question the question of sexual relationships with robots and androids is quite another.
And robots that are able to provide some measure of a satisfying sexual experience are equally imminent according robotocists like David Levy and professional technological prognosticators like Ray Kurzweil. However, providing a “satisfying” sexual experience requires more than just creating a machine that can assume the necessary positions and make the movements required to gratify a human being. “A new generation of AI researcher was investigating more meaningful relationships between humans and what… [is] called 'artificial partners'" (Levy 11). To create a “partner” or a machine that a human being could possibly consider to be on equal sexual and psychological footing, (which despite the focus on the sexual depravity of men is generally a requirement for both genders) is a much more difficult task than simply developing the robotics technology. One has to overcome the Uncanny Valley on one of the basest, most fundamentally human level: the level of sexual desire. This is no easy task.
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“The corresponding recess in the supposed function is called the uncanny valley. The core of this explanation… will be a form of empathy involving a kind of imaginative perception. However, as will be shown, imaginative perception fails in cases of very humanlike objects” (Misselhorn 1). The uncanny valley is derived from an expository psychological essay by Sigmund Freud referred to as simply “the Uncanny” Freud described the phenomenon as being: “undoubtedly related to what is frightening — to what arouses dread and horror; yet we may expect that a special core of feeling is present which justifies the use of a special conceptual term. One is curious to know what this common core is which allows us to distinguish as ‘uncanny’; certain things which lie within the field of what is frightening” (Freud I).
Freud’s “Uncanny” has in recent times become a seminal work cited often, though, usually not in the field of psycho-analysis (Batnaes 1). Robot engineer Masohiro Mori posited the idea that if a robot were sufficiently stylized, that is, had human features but wasn’t actually human, than we would focus on those features that were similar to us and find them empathetic or endearing. However, if a robot crosses a certain threshold of realism we start to look for ways not to think of it as human and any portion of the robot which fails to meet our expectations of what is naturally human causes us to feel revulsion or fright. “It is hypothesized that this uncanny feeling is because the realistic synthetic characters elicit the concept of "human," but fail to live up to it. That is, this failure generates feelings of unease due to character traits falling outside the expected spectrum of everyday social experience (Steckenfinger 1).
I like the point about our ability and willingness to relate to something which is not human and how that changes. A robot is a robot; it should not be mistaken for a living, feeling being, and should not be used as a substitute for a person. There are almost 7 billion people on this planet, and if we cannot do a decent job of keeping each other company, then maybe we should improve what it is we're doing instead of creating artificial beings to give us what we are incapable of or are unwilling to do. As far as a sexual relationship, as you point out the question here is what drives sexual desire. If the answer to this can be found in a robot, then I guess that answers the "Can we?", though the next question is "Should we" and I say no. Just my thoughts. Enjoying the read so far!
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to discussions like this where we try to predict the market for, and the utility of, some future venture (in this case robots or other automata that will provide comfort, companionship and yes, perhaps sex) its helpful and important to view the world as it is rather than measuring it against some ideal of what it SHOULD be.
ReplyDeleteYou point is well taken: "There are almost 7 billion people on this planet, and if we cannot do a decent job of keeping each other company, then maybe we should improve what it is we're doing instead of creating artificial beings to give us what we are incapable of or are unwilling to do."
But the fact of the matter is, we don't and frankly, we can't force people to spend their time in any particular way in their social life. It would be better if lonely people had other people to keep them company but my recommendation would be to try to maintain some sympathy for the idea that if could do a better job of it, than we would have already. For good or ill, these robots are possibly the best solution to a real problem.
We haven't done a better job of it not because we aren't capable, but just because we haven't. It just seems strange to think that people, not a person, but people would be more willing to spend their time with a robot instead of a human being. I also think it's important to measure against what the world "actually is" AND what the world "should be".
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