LOVE & SEX WITH ROBOTS

Levy, D. (2007) Love and sex with robots New York: HarperCollins Publishers

This 325 page book on robots is an intellectual overview of the field past, present, and future. If you are looking for soft porn, this is not it. The author writes deductively from the macro to the micro and sequences each chapter so that robot- human relations are the last topic.

Briefly, humans need attachments. Little baby humans need constant attention and bonding and this continues throughout life. Unfortunately, not all will participate in human bonding. Thus, singles search out for pets, short term sex, or attachments to electrical and other bonding objects like furry objects and the like. In each instance, moving closer to something approximating a human is both stigmatized and new.

Lonely people remain lonely unless they can reach out socially, virtually, or with some electrical device. It is not uncommon for women to use vibrators and now men are using them too. For whatever the reason, any sex without a married other sex partner is a sin.

Masturbation is tolerable, but not favored.

As technology improves, the sex robot emerges. The more sophisticated the robot, the more likely those humans will bond with it. If one can establish a relationship with the robot and it has some independent dialogue, then it is attractive to women. For men, the relationship is much simpler.

For whatever reason, robots are available when the human wants it. The costs can run into the thousands when the sexbot is strikingly human. There is a picture in the book of a young 20 something female standing next to a human male. The likeness is incredible.

In some parts of Asia, sexbots are replacing prostitutes. Sexbots can be cleaned after every customer with chemicals that fight STD’s and AIDS. Bots can make more money and do not age.

For females, a bot will sometime in the future be available that is sensitive, communicative, and available. Further, the sex robot is there on her terms and her wishes.

This reviewer is also quoted in the book and it is about the problems involved with this area. Some futurists believe that the bots will diminish prostitution, single mothers, abortion, sexual disease, crime and aggression. However, the main point of this reviewer is that rather than reducing social problems, the boot will only be an extension of a sexual addiction. In other words, bots become part of the menu of choices for quick impersonal sex. It does not replace or completely reduce the sexual problems in other areas of the human condition. This is a technological fix with unintended consequences.

This book is recommended.  Prof. Joel Snell   Kirkwood College.