

Ex-Bell Labs AI researcher unveils first life-size AI-driven sex robot - petercooper
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/my-girlfriends-hot-but-she-has-a-builtin-cooling-system-20100110-m0tk.html

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andreyf
_Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001 attacks. "I
had a friend who passed away in 9/11," Hines said. "I promised myself I would
create a program to store his personality, and that became the foundation for
Roxxxy True Companion."_

That one detail, I did _not_ expect.

~~~
jacquesm
What a load of tripe. You can promise yourself anything but this seems to be
just a convenient hook to attach a quest for money and an advanced sex toy to.

There is nothing respectful about having someone pass away like that and then
to use their memory as an excuse for something this tasteless. Assuming that's
even true.

If I were his friend I'd feel less than honoured. Something along the lines of
'thanks for remembering but leave me out of it please'.

Or are 9/11 victims now fair game in marketing nonsense?

The AI claim is also complete rubbish.

She can't vacuum but "has a full C cup and is ready for action", that's some
impressive AI there.

Ira Levin is turning in his grave.

~~~
chrischen
What kind of friend was he? And why did he want to restore his guy friend's
personality into a sex robot?

~~~
jacquesm
And how did 'he' become a 'she'.

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cabalamat
Maybe he was a transvestite?

~~~
die_sekte
But then he would have made a male sex robot with female clothing. (I think
the market for those is pretty small.)

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eam
In case you want to see the video:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7NhBEx6Ank>

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prawn
The bit where he's awkwardly fingering the sex doll's uncanny valley to
trigger some robotic response is the most depressing thing I've seen so far
this year.

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djcapelis
I sure hope they program these with the ability to recognize safewords.

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dandelany
"Robotic movement is built into 'the three inputs' and a mechanical heart that
powers a liquid cooling system."

That's just creepy. Not the fact that a heart-like pump keeps the internal
computer cool. The fact that someone, somewhere, is falling asleep to a
mechanical heartbeat...

~~~
djcapelis
Well, let's not go overboard. Many people fall asleep to the sound of
mechanical heartbeats or mechanically assisted heartbeats every day.

Besides just pacemakers, there's mechanical hearts that do everything from
help out or completely replace a heart until a new one can be found.

~~~
dandelany
Okay - the heartbeat of a non-human, non-cyborg machine.

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ivankirigin
AI-driven is a bit of a stretch here. If you include common sense perception,
reasoning and action, this robot is far from state of the art. Did I read that
right, that it can't move any limbs? How can one possibly even come close to
thinking this thing is real?

Those girlfriend sims promise a better relationship, because their faults
aren't as constantly glaring [http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/man-to-
marry-his-vid.ht...](http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/20/man-to-marry-his-
vid.html)

~~~
jacquesm
Exactly. It's just a cheap marketing ploy. It worked though.

~~~
ivankirigin
Hype != Sales

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emarcotte
Latent appliance fetishist rejoice.

L. Ron Hoover and the First Church of Appliantology would approve. Of course,
it did mention that it didn't vacuum, so maybe not.

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zephjc
realdoll + tickle-me-elmo = this

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mapleoin
It's sad when I find the same news on hackernews that I just saw on the front
page of the free subway newspaper.

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rdtsc
And for course it is running plan 9 ;-)

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eru
Sources?

~~~
rdtsc
Here you go ;-)

<http://plan9.bell-labs.com/sources/plan9/sys/src/>

~~~
jacquesm
hehe. touche!

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byrneseyeview
Apparently she says some very anti-semitic stuff. See the video.

[http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2010/01/roxxxy-anti-
semitic-...](http://mreugenides.blogspot.com/2010/01/roxxxy-anti-semitic-sex-
robot.html)

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zitterbewegung
If Futurama is right (which doesn't seem that far fetched). This could be the
start of the end of civilization as we know it.

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vaksel
looks like he started off fine, but then got bored by the time he got to the
face. Talk about your butterface.

~~~
philk
Faces are the hardest part to get right.

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brianobush
hmm, costs more than a real-doll (6k). Wonder there is a future merger of
real-doll and this company. One makes awesome bodies and the other brains?

~~~
Kliment
Well, if you look at either, neither one nor the other has an awesome body OR
brain.

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nostrademons
She needs a haircut.

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huhtenberg
This is so sad.

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anonjon
"A male sex robot named Rocky is in development."

So can you buy one of each and mate them and produce the second generation?

Genetic programming ftw.

~~~
clistctrl
That brings an interesting point. I'm not particularly well informed here, but
i'm curious. Most genetic algorithms I've seen work by taking a source adding
a "mutation" then testing it against a goal. How would a genetic algorithm
change if there wasn't a defined goal, but instead an eco-system that decides
for itself what is most desirable.

~~~
byrneseyeview
This will create the implicit goal of "reproducing," and "not dying," since
programs that fit those traits will predominate.

