Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Will Sex Robots Cause Hooker Unemployment?

The Human Choice & Computers conference in Manchester, England starts today and  is focusing on the “constantly evolving intimate relationships” between humans and technology.

University of Oslo Professor Charles Ess says social robots, such as mechanical dolls, “may well be able to offer good sex on demand.”

But Ess says they will remain souless.

 “As far as I can tell, the consensus in the AI and robotic communities is, in a strong sense, no [to transcending their souless form],” Ess told Motherboard in an interview.

“Because to love you, or anyone else, requires what philosophers like to call 'first person phenomenal consciousness’—basically the capacity to be aware of oneself and to be aware of one having emotions and desires,” he continued. “The current state of the art, and what I've seen of projections, all point to no. For example, there's an expert group located in Stanford that's going to issue a report before the end of the month, and their prognosis for 2030 is also ‘no’. They think we're just not going to have that kind of consciousness [in robots].”

Motherboard continues:
Ess predicts, in notions parallel to the robots already on the market today, that what buyers will be left with are essentially zombies.

“So if you don't have that kind of consciousness, and you don't have that kind of real emotion, a sort of blunt image of what you have is a zombie. It knows how to move, it can imitate emotion very well,” he said. “Robots can already do that and are getting better, so they can evoke a sense of feeling on your side, and this is the basic trick. There's a whole subfield in robotics called artificial emotions.”

Artificial emotions could work wonders in a therapeutic sense, but are no match for the real thing.

“There are circumstances in which that's perfectly fine. But in the long run what we want is to be genuinely loved and desired for who we are as a complete and embodied person,” said Ess. “Robots will be able to fake that, but you and I will know because we bought them, or we rented them, that it's a fake.”
 -RW

10 comments:

  1. Robots will only replace hookers when they design a robot with eyes so lifelike, you can see their robot soul shatter.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Only if robots can fake orgasms, too.

    ReplyDelete
  3. --- “As far as I can tell, the consensus in the AI and robotic communities is, in a strong sense, no [to transcending their souless form],” Ess told Motherboard ---

    Why exactly would that be a problem is something someone will have to explain to me.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just like the minimum wage, if it becomes illegal to employ humans machines will fill the void.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Deckard: Have you felt yourself to be exploited in any way?
    Zhora: Like what?
    Deckard: Well... well, like to get this job. I mean, did... did you do, or... or were you asked to do anything lewd... or unsavory, or... or, otherwise repulsive to your... your person, huh?
    Zhora: [laughs] Are you for real?

    From 'Blade Runner'

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well my soul is dead...so this sounds perfect

    ReplyDelete
  7. well as far as empty experiences go, this might be one of the better ones.

    ReplyDelete
  8. If it ever resembles the Star Trek holodeck then yeah. It will be quite a while, unfortunately, and I doubt I will be alive to see it. But here's to hoping.

    More interesting will be will fake relationships be so enjoyable that social contact diminishes greatly. It already happens with smart phones.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Having been married for over twenty years, I could make some jokes about soulless sex, but I'll refrain ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Check out the film "Cherry 2000" for perspective.

    ReplyDelete