Intimacy, Bonding, and Sex Robots: Examining Empirical Results and Exploring Ethical Ramifications

Abstract

Many advances in communicative technology have served to represent and express human sexuality: the printing press, motion pictures, and, not the least, the Internet. Social robotics, however, while not yet a mainstream contributor, is particularly poised to represent, enact, and affect society's sexual mores and practices. Sex robots are already manufactured and marketed by several companies, with increasing variety and capability being at least promised if not delivered.1 And although virtual reality and other computer-based avenues for sexual use are also developing rapidly, sex robots—embodied, mobile, and (to a limited degree) expressive—elicit and trade upon dimensions of physicality, intimacy, reciprocity, and social space. Robots both reflect and refract notions of what human bodies are, how they interact, touch, desire, and accompany one another. The prospect of sex robots assuming a greater presence in our societies underscores the general ethical questions raised by social robots: How will people be able to live with such robots? How will people treat each other as a result? Will social robots replace human beings in ways they should not?