
We Are Living in a Robot Moment - huac
http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/we-are-living-in-a-robot-moment-rejoice-cower-and-copulate/
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tachyonbeam
From the article:

> "If I have sex with a human-like robot that I’m free to dominate and
> objectify, then my brain is not going to be able to compartmentalize that
> behavior as robot-specific"

This is ignoring the fact that lots of people already have crazy BDSM sex
behind closed doors, and that prostitutes have existed since the dawn of time.
You don't need robots to see that people are in fact able to compartmentalize
their behavior. I know, because I've been part of the BDSM scene, and I don't
just assume that every woman out there wants to be dominated.

When realistic sex robots come out, they are going to sell, and yes, the
clients will likely be over 95% male. I don't think this will lead to some
collapse of society. I think it will give sexually frustrated people a good
outlet. That might not be such a terrible thing. Maybe we'll end up living in
a society that's slightly more relaxed when it comes to sex.

There's some interesting implications to think about. For one, you can
obviously make sex robots look as tall and thin as you want. It will be
difficult for flesh and blood humans to compete with them in terms of
appearance. You could say this will lead to even more unhealthy body image
standards, but maybe it will be the opposite. At some point, when the sex
robots end up looking like anime characters, trying to compete with the said
sex robots in terms of appearance will become entirely pointless. The likely
outcome of that is some kind of counter-culture of people who don't wear
makeup, don't spend tens of hours at the gym and generally don't try to look
like superfit robots... Who knows, maybe having a slight weight surplus will
end up being a turn on for lots of people, because it's kind of obvious
evidence that you are in fact not a robot.

------
elipsey
"giving heterosexual male desire free rein among anatomically female sex
robots will only worsen men’s objectification of women and children generally"

So unless this was quoted out of contex, hetero-male sexuality is the only
kind that's anti-social?

Well, that is certainly a relief! My gf owns two sex bots (older, dumber
models), and I was worried she would start holding out on them unitl they gave
her money. It's also reassureing to know that the gays will treat their
sexbots humanely -- I was afraid they try to buy them scented candels or move
in with them on the third date!

As long as the sexbots don't fall into the cruel clutches of straght males,
everything will be fine.

~~~
Shivetya
likely her concern and that of other SJWs is that robots will be created in
the ideal image that many have for both men and women and not in the image
most of the SJWs actually possess.

if anything the biggest objectors tend to be people who themselves never can
be the target of such activity

~~~
elipsey
Well, I read Richardson's paper. Here are a couple of tasty quotes:

“Baron-Cohen suggests that the higher prevalence in crime, sexual abuse, the
use of prostitutes and murder are disproportionately committed by men and show
that men lack empathy in comparison to females [8].”

“This narrative is also replayed in the production of video nasties, sexual
abuse images of children in virtual reality settings [11] and the sexual and
racial violence seen in some video games such as Grand Theft Auto where gamers
are rewarded for killing prostitutes [12].”

I don't think Richardson is jealous of prostitutes, I think she is convinced
by evidence that the sex crimes discussed in this paper are predominantly
committed by men. I'm convinced too, but I don't accept that it follows that
men in general lack empathy. It could be the case that rapists and murderers,
while predominantly male, are not representative of the modal male.

I think the problem with the hypothesis that sex crimes are caused by a lack
of empathy in men is that the average empathy of a gender is not sufficient to
explain the behavior of all it's members.

So for an example of a similar argument applied to women: Most infanticide is
committed by women. Therefore, women are less empathetic on average then men.

Should we ban dolls that objectify babies, or should we look for some other
explanation?

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run4yourlives2
"The founder of the Campaign Against Sex Robots, the English ethicist Kathleen
Richardson, not unreasonably makes this an issue of gender and power, arguing
that giving heterosexual male desire free rein among anatomically female sex
robots will only worsen men’s objectification of women and children generally,
and thus reinforce the violent inequalities already present in society.giving
heterosexual male desire free rein among anatomically female sex robots will
only worsen men’s objectification of women and children generally"

Remember folks, men are evil creatures that should be repressed, lest they
harm even more women and children.

The argument is basically that listening to heavy metal and playing FPS video
games will turn you into a mass murdering child rapist. Simplistic and easily
dismissed at best.

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varelse
Seems like the _Reefer Madness_ version of _The Robot Apocalypse_ to me. @#$%
that Star Trek episode, Futurama IMO covered robot/human relations much better
and more realistically with "I Dated A Robot":

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Dated_a_Robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Dated_a_Robot)

~~~
douche
Or Proposition Infinity

"Even ghost and horse!"

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_Infinity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposition_Infinity)

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electricblue
I see a common thread running through all of gender politics and specifically
objectification, the idea that you are what you enjoy doing. You are not a
free willed person with a more or less set amount of empathy, you are an
unmolded piece of clay and every piece of entertainment you consume will shape
you into the type of person the author presumably wants you to be. I find this
idea preposterous. I think there are plenty of serious social problems with
sex robots without going to a place where Jimmy + Sex Robot = Jimmy the Serial
Rapist

~~~
mason240
There is a weird resurgence of the 80's moral panic against pornography and
the 90's moral panic against video games.

~~~
anon4
_Ahem_ and the 00's panic against violent video games (Jack Thompson anyone?)

------
guard-of-terra
And yet I don't see any broad robot-making movement even remotely similar to
early 00s FOSS explosion.

Neither an active startup scene (no doubt they are there, just not getting
much attention).

Even 3D printing kind of lost coverage.

While we're at it, let's make a robot that collects plastic bottles and other
recyclable garbage? And also one that cuts Heracleum sosnowskyi and makes
biodisel out of it?

~~~
drzaiusapelord
This is my thinking as well. Robots have become the new jetpack it seems. Lots
of conjecture and promises from people unfamiliar with the industry. I read
these articles from time to time and they more or less assume we have some
level of working AI and cheap robot arms and legs with the degrees of freedom
and strength a person has. We're not remotely there. In fact, services like
Google Now, Cortana, and Siri are comically well... stupid. Expert systems
tied to various databases does not make for a very intelligent agent, at least
on the level we're talking about here. The home robot market is also comically
stupid and filled with things like Pepper or Jibo or Robotbase which are
little more than ipads on wheels.

As a robot hobbyist I'm very bewildered about all this empty futurism. What
robots have these journalists seen that can trivially roll into McDonalds are
start taking orders, for example. How are they handle natural language
processing in a noisy and high speed environment full of fault prone humans?
If robots like these are going to come about we'll first be seeing stuff like
this on the hobbyist level, then in children's toys and other novelty seeking
industries, and only later in places like retail or offices.

I'm sure physical automation paired with intelligence will eventually eat the
world, but eventually isn't two years from now. It might be more like two
hundred. Or even two thousand. General purpose robotics is a hard problem. Its
not remotely solved.

~~~
thehoff
I agree here. Maybe this is part of the slow going evolution. We are kind of
on the cusp of all these things that are very slowly starting to happen. We
have robots that are taking the place of patrolling grounds, serving food,
delivering medicines, vacuuming our floors. All somewhat mundane things.

Now we have toys like what they are doing with Barbie
([http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/magazine/barbie-wants-
to-g...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/20/magazine/barbie-wants-to-get-to-
know-your-child.html)). This seems interesting as we are now starting to play
with our emotions (as pointed out in the article with the AIBO) more and more.

Seems that this is just moving a lot slower than everyone anticipated.

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madaxe_again
I'm impressed that he got through a whole article on robots, sexual
interactions with them, their implications for humanity, and all the rest,
without once mentioning Asimov, who arguably thought more about the
implications of a robotic society than any other.

The long and the short of it is that it's somewhat inevitable that we become
the robots, that the line between biology and technology blurs, that "human"
ultimately means something broader than we consider today. Either that or we
destroy ourselves.

