Sex Dolls

Let me begin with an apology.

I’m sorry.  I have been thinking again and we need to talk about sex.

But wait.  I am ahead of myself.  I need to tell you about artificial intelligence (AI) first.

I am a little freaked-out about AI.  The way I have it figured, once we equip robots with AI—actual reasoning and not preprogrammed stuff—they are going to figure out we are assholes and they will, at a minimum, beat the hell out of us.

But…we have an interesting sideshow developing along the way.

Some manufacturers of sex dolls are in the early stages of incorporating AI into their sex dolls.  The idea, obviously, is to produce a doll that truly interacts with humans.  A doll that learns from experience.

A sex robot.

Manufacturers are already pretty far down the road from the inflatable sex dolls your weird neighbor owned. Companies such as 1AM Dolls, have long been striving to produce high-end, realistic dolls.  Now, they are beginning to incorporate AI in more expensive models.

This is all a little creepy, but, at a minimum, mixing sex with AI will be a surefire way to pour a lot of money into the development of AI.  And this stuff is way more intriguing than producing a smart-assed AI car that will eventually drive us off a cliff.

On a final note, Anco Peeters, a doctoral student at Australia’s University of Wollongong, and Pim Haselager, associate professor at The Netherlands’ Radboud University, recently published “Designing Virtuous Sex Robots” in the International Journal of Social Robotics.  Bottom line, they see a day when we have sex “droids” that can refuse to have sex with us.

You can’t get more realistic than that.

—Mitchell Hegman

PHOTO: 1AM Doll