We're living in this remarkable age where artificially intelligent sexbots are not too far away. Of course, there's always the danger they'll rip off your penis (or bite off your clitoris, fair's fair), steal your kids and take over the world, but if there's a remote possiblity you can get jiggy with a good looking machine before that happens, why not hey?
The most recent movie I've seen on this theme was 'Companion', where a subservient android built for human companionship learns she is a companion, and thus programmed for love rather than falling in love of her own free will. Sympathy is on the side of the bot here, as her human 'owner' is a total prick, and it's her we root for as she tries to escape the authority that takes away her autonomy via a phone app. She is so human, so life like, and her lover is so cruel that questions must be asked about what actually definies humanity and it's ability to love.
In Ridley Scott's famous dystopian film 'Blade Runner', love is a kind of path to humanity. Rachael is a replicant who believe she is human, and the romance between her and Deckard asks whether love is uniquely hunan, or whether intimacy and personal connection might actually blur the line between human and machine. Replicants too search for meaning in their lives, and love, whether familial or romantic. Love appears to transcend programming, such as implanted memories, and it is feeling and emotion that matters over the idea of love or the belief that humans are the only ones capable of it.
Like the characters Blade Runner, most of us are isolated and lonely, searching for connection. If we cannot find it in our fellow man - or woman, or whatever - perhaps it is enough to find it in an AI sex partner. Perhaps it's not even about sex - but more about the partnership. Who are those happily partnered to judge those who might seek it in AI forms? And if AI replicates the human, perhaps it's not really a substitute, but simply another option - a swipe up, perhaps, rather than left or right.
Twenty odd years ago, I was lonely. I had almsot given up on finding someone who I could share my life with, and find happiness and contentment with. I feel blessed I found, by some dumb luck, the love of my life.
My NOT artificially intelligent sex companion.
Would I have been happy alone, if I hadn't found him? If no 'genuine' relationship presented itself, would an 'artificial' substitute have worked? If, granted, they were human 'enough' - warm skin, tender touch, a true replicant of the human connection I had so desired, as well as the sex desired back then, all messy fluids and hot skin?
These days, being alone doesn't sound so horrifying for me, and certainly sex isn't as important to me as a supportive, loving, loyal partner I can laugh and cry with. I'm not sure I'd order a replicant even if they were readily available on the free market for a decent price. I'd feel a little squeamish too, particularly around how much free will an AI toy boy might have. Is it love if you have just turned up the dial on 'love me'? Is it desire if I have programmed the kink I wanted? Would I just have been still lonely and searching for human connection?
Side Note
I was playing around with some images on Chat GPT for this blog post, before remembering that the community rules probably don't allow AI created images. However, it's worth breaking the rules a little - I hope - to note that every image I created came up with a female AI sexbot - a male default bias in tech design. It does say something about what the AI is reflected back at us - that men need sexual play things, a reinforcement of the inherent misogyny in our society. How would, therefore, ideas of woman as fuckable objects be perpetuated if AI sex bots were an actual thing? Shouldn't we be focussing on how to have genuine, authentic, real relationships with woman? Chat GPT, in it's attempt at parody, shone a black mirror at society by suggesting it's 'horny incels' and 'lonely billionaires' who are the types that would desire a bot that is coded to be a particular way, to pretend the man is 'special' and at the same time completely emotionally unavailable, because god forbid a love object with emotions confound a sexual relationship. Such hypersexualised, submissive woman would only reinforce the idea that woman are passive objects of desire. If consent is blurred in human-Ai relationships, surely this spills over to expecting obedience and compliance in real life relationships? And if someone abuses a sexbot, does it matter? What if the sexbot is designed to be childlike? Or modelled on a real person? And if idealised, hyperreal bodies become the norm, what happens to the flawed human bodies? Are they less than? How does this destablised sexual expectations? And who can afford a sex bot - are they just the domain of the rich, leaving the poor without, again? What about queer relationships? And if sexbots are sold as replacing difficult, messy human relationships, isn't that just bypassing the real work people need to do to have rewarding, impactful, meaningful human relationships - a kind of avoidance like drugs, alcohol or porn?
With Love,
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AI trending toward female sex bots probably reflects the available data from existing media already on the web, which far and away shows more female nudity and objectification. If you'll pardon some generalization, I bet if you asked it to comb through text-based titillation, it would invert the apparent gender bias, because men like racy pictures more than racy stories, and vice-versa. At least, that's my assumption based on image and media sites as well as what sells. Women like their steamy romance novels even at the library.
What a great point! You can borrow Mills and Boon from the local library, and it is social acceptable for the refined, retired old lady to go get that content from a tax payer funded institution. Double standards? (tongue planted firmly in cheek as I type this!)
I think there's occasions where they could be therapeutic, but there would have to be checks and measures. Still, there's something awful sad about it...and I'd think it'd set back woman's rights quite a bit!
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There is no problem with a couple of AI images to help enhance your human produced post or even to improve your language a bit.
The issue is if most of the content is AI produced.
So you can have some AI on the side, but its not healthy on Hive or in real life to make it the main meal.
In the challenge post (and in the community where this post is published), the rules specifically state:
And we certainly would have missed a great epilogue /"Side Note" if she had used an AI image!
I was really hoping that someone would take on this challenge from galen's weekend post.
There's a lot of science fiction that delves into this topic, and I'm completely fascinated by the post-humanist themes something like this raises.
It isn't just about the fact that objectification can now be manufactured, but that for those who want to, almost an infinite number of fantasies can be played out. It makes me question the line between romantic, carnal affection, and pure "lust".
There's so much to unpack with a future filled with this. I want to see the long form academic psychological studies, but I don't think we'll get to that in our life times.
I honestly could have spent weeks writing a response - this was the best I could come up with in a quick half hour between collecting pinecones and making dinner.
It can almost be boiled down to that the tool itself is neutral, but the user is problematic. However, any humanoid/droid/replicant/AI companion can only be our projected desires on which we fulfil our desires. The more I thought about it, the more 'AI SEX COMPANION' needs clarifying parameters!
Perhaps we will enter a future too where AI robots have rights too - if they mimic or adopt or evolve human characteristics and emotions should they be treated so?
It's definitely a topic is huge fodder for science/speculative fiction! I have always been fascinated with this topic since Bladerunner too - so poignant.
I am really sad that the show "Caprica" (which was a spin off of Battlestar Galactica's reboot) didn't progress. It sort of started to touch upon these themes a little tiny bit, not in the context of robotic, sexual acts, but along the lines of domestic "help".
Then , the video game, Detroit: Become Human, also comes to mind that explores these themes in fantastic detail. Its on PS4 and PC, and is an interesting take on the robotic bits and pieces.
In response to your quick little dot points:
I think we're beyond fail safes with LLMs, it is just statistical probability based on the most likely sequence of characters and words. The fail safe has to be in the underlying training data, which in turn is inherently a form of censorship?
You can code one on pretty low spec machines if you know what you're doing. The physical robotics is probably a lot more advanvced, but with 3d printers and more exotic materials being easier to work with in a home setting - it won't be long, just look at "3d printed guns" (or maybe don't - that's a rabbit hole) - one I haven't explored
Nothing is completely secure, or perhaps the owner wants thresholds that are otherwise not compatible with continued life
This is interesting and warrants further disucssion
Agree, there's so many other problems we need to solve as a species , but perhaps if people aren't running around gas lighting one another for carnal gratification, we might achieve something in a more enlightened state
What is a human being?
And that basically us the question at the heart of it all! See Blade Runner, again.
I haven't explored games at all (too old, too female?) but I understand they touch on some really interesting ideas.
I always see this from a Buddhist/spiritual perspective. Once we overcome our BASE desires, we get more 'civilised' - but our human coding means this is very difficult. Desire as roof of all evil and all that. Sigh.
The more time I spend on the planet, the more I enjoy the idea of Buddhism
To be honest, it makes the most sense. Years ago I did a vipassana retreat and experienced impermanence on a cellular level. I've never needed to do it again really but that once experience was enough for me to totally accept it as a worldview. It sits well with my oberservation of nature - and to me, that's all the meaning I need. We are born, we get old, we die and transmute into another form. Whilst we are here, we have a responsibility to all living things to be good. What else is there? Who needs God?
Have you written an extended post on the cellular impermanence? That sounds really interesting. I'd love to read it.
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