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We study the ethics of sex robots on Hollywood films





On December 19-20, the Third International Congress on Relations with Sex Robots (Third International Congress of Love and Sex with Robots) took place in London. After examining the main topics of the reports, Daniel Cooper of Engadget concluded that television and cinema had already covered most of the problems that scientists are now discussing.



So if you want to understand the key issues of ethics (sex) of robots, you have two ways. The first is to bury books for a few years. The second is to sit in front of the TV screen. In Futurama , The World Of The Wild West, And The Stepford Wives, Cooper found reflections on the issues that congress participants were arguing about.



An important explanation: last year's congress on sex robots was devoted to the possibility of harm to robots. At this year’s conference, widespread fears and anxieties related to transhumanism were discussed.



Should robots be able to defend against us?



Watch: Janet fights against deactivation in the TV series "In a Better World"





Janet from the series "In the best world" - the equivalent of Siri in human form. She will do everything you ask of her. In one of the episodes of the sitcom, two characters try to reset the settings of Janet, and although she cannot experience emotions, she is also programmed to deal with anyone who wants to harm her. The closer a person comes to the big red Reset button, the more active the self-defense mechanism becomes. She pleads not to kill her, screams and even shows a false image of her “children”, appealing to human guilt.



In the context of the series, this situation looks funny, but scientists are seriously discussing the idea that the robot with self-awareness could go into conflict with a person. Researcher Nicola Liberati of the University of Twente believes that artificial intelligence will eventually acquire these characteristics in order to appear more human-like . Liberati cites the example of Love Plus, a fairly old Japanese game for the Nintendo DS. In it, the player must give pleasure to a digital partner, which can be irritable and demanding - to such an extent that it requires verbal declarations of love in a filled train carriage.



Liberati believes that the next generation of AI will be programmed to experience hostility and even anger because of its role in our lives. If you try to disable the program during a dispute, it will require you to explain why you are doing this, or try to stop you. The question of whether these behavioral features are enough for the devices we created to be considered humanlike rises in the first season of the “Wild West World”. Let me remind you that there the creators of the park are forced to constantly "reset" the consciousness of robots.



Should I be ashamed of the love of a robot?



Watch: Poe Dameron's Love for BB-8 in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi







Liberati also mentions the snobbery of people who treat people with virtual relationships with condescension. These kinds of connections are often treated as less valuable than those in which two people sit and talk in the same room. But is it true that due to different ways of communication, relationships deserve different levels of respect?



Take, for example, the warm friendship between the pilot of the Resistance ship According to Demeron and his astro-mechanic droid BB-8 , who is not at all like a humanoid. Most characters treat a droid almost as an equal: they turn to him as a person, and in The Last Jedi there is an episode where Poe embraces BB-8.



According to Liberati, to have meaningful relationships with artificial personalities is absolutely normal and acceptable as long as such communication is not to the detriment of communication between people. Since Poe has friendly relations with Star Wars and with people, including Admiral Holdo, he is completely normal. Not to mention the fact that we already demonstrate affection for inanimate objects when we give names to cars and boats, endowing them with individual features. Personification of objects in your home is very common - so why does the idea of ​​a relationship with artificial intelligence seem so strange to us?



Do robots have sex?



Watch: Relationship between Krayten and Camilla in Red Dwarf







Professor Gabriele Trovato of Waseda University in Tokyo published the results of a controversial study of how we humans perceive the sex of robots. He showed volunteers images of robots with bodies of different shapes, namely, with a different ratio of waist size to hip volume. Robots with thin waists and wide hips were perceived by the majority as belonging to the female sex.



But since robots do not have genitals and breasts, and they do not need them for existence, is it worth it to give them sex? Recall the 1991 Camilla episode from the Red Dwarf TV series. In it, Krayten, a toilet cleaner, meets his feminine version. Why does a cleaner robot need a female version? Both cars are arranged exactly the same, and the differences in them exist only at the external level.



The work of Trovato caused a lot of controversy at the congress due to poor preparation: the subjects were initially given the idea that robots have gender. At a certain point, when there were too many questions, the researcher burst out in anger: “Who needs a transsexual robot?” But the question is more likely to be put like this: why do robots have sex?



Is it worth worrying that robots will become the main ones?



Watch: Ava's manipulations in the movie "Out of the Car"







Rebeca Rosie from the University of Jyväskylä asked a series of questions about what happens when robots become key in a relationship. In the end, they are likely to be smarter, faster, stronger than people. In addition, robots can develop the ability to lie, and we may not understand that we are being deceived.



Rosie cited an example study in which a small group of robots were given the task of finding a usable source of food and avoiding poisoning. The robots were supposed to report the discovery to other members of the robot group, which in the end was supposed to move all the way to the source of "good" food. In a short time, some of the robots learned to lie: they pretended not to find food and sent their companions on the wrong track. A similar situation is shown in the movie “Out of the Machine,” where a conscious robot manipulates a human creator and observer to achieve its own goals.



Another question that Rosie asks is: should robots reach that state of development when they can shape their own preferences (among which an imperfect person most likely will not fall). In fact, they may prefer to leave the person alone, spending time with other machines that correspond to their level.



Should we worry about WHAT sex robots will be?



Watch: eerie automatons from “Stepford wives”







History professor Julie Wousk of the State University of New York argues that people prone to creating sex robots seem to be the least suitable for this purpose. Many, she says, intend to create an absolutely submissive and soft creature that most resembles one of the “Stepford wives”. A reproducible style of behavior can be traced in works of art for a long time: from Ibsen's Puppet House to Ideal Woman, Cherry 2000 and The Wonders of Science.



Wousk is convinced that the first generation of sex robots - such as the creation of Abyss Creations - is built on the ideal of "Stepford wives." We are dealing with the revival of the Victorian ideal, when the immutable truth was that the place of a woman in the house, and the only acceptable way for her to behave is to be obedient, always ready for sex and devote all herself to the creation of the hearth. And you have to ask yourself: is this really what we want from our sex robots?



What else to see about sex robots





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