This has been a long time coming, but finally, the time is upon us. Sex dolls are nothing new, they have been largely associated(rightly or wrongly) with Stag Nights within the western culture or lonely seedy old men. However, as with the normalisation of pornography, sex toys and orgies, the Sex Doll has been brought out of the dark ages and given a little makeover. Welcome to the age of AI Sex Dolls
‘The ‘sex tech’ market is worth an estimated $30.6bn – and across the globe, firms are racing to create a radical new type of robot they say could change sex forever.
From AI personalities capable of holding a conversation to models with a functioning G-spot, firms are hoping consumers will pay up to $15,000 for a sex doll that never says no.’ [source]
The first AI Sex Doll really to hit the media was Harmony from Abyss Creations, this stunningly realistic, yet slightly creepy sex doll will unlike those before her (or more accurately ‘it’) will not just lie there like a corpse while it’s human operator does whatever they wish to do. Harmony interacts with its operator making each encounter unique and more lifelike.
But don’t worry, if you can’t afford the $10,000 dollar price tag currently being predicted for the full Harmony AI Head unit there is an app where you can build then nurture your own doll for, well, ever:
‘The Harmony Artificial Intelligence App is the core of the Realbotix product line; Using this app you can create a unique version of an A.I. complete with custom voice, personality profile, and on-screen avatar. You can give your A.I. it’s own name and then begin interacting through normal dialog.
We are designing the Harmony AI system to be fun and engaging, more than focusing on whether it can fool you into thinking it’s a human being. The key words for us are “Personality, Respect, Love, Empathy, Fun and Proactiveness”.
You can have your version of the AI be more or less happy, shy, sensual, funny, talkative etc. This means every user will have a unique experience with his virtual companion. Users can interact with the Harmony app stand-alone, or connect the App to the robotic head dolls, or even connect the app to the Virtual Reality platform.’
Now i’m all for the free market and where there is profit to be made there will always be someone willing to fill that market, but where this will all lead, whether its by some malicious intent from a higher force to break apart relationships and the family units or whether it is merely the consequential reactions to a greedy and perverse human specie, either way the outcome does not appear bright.
I’d love to tell you these dolls were getting little reaction and interest from it’s potential clientele, but unfortunately it seems quite the opposite as Samantha the £3000 AI sex doll at Arts Electronica Festival in Linz, Austria recently discovered, BBC Reports:
An AI sex doll has been left “heavily soiled” and in need of repairs after being repeatedly molested while on display at a tech fair.
According to the Metro, the doll’s developer, Sergi Santos, from Barcelona, Spain complained, “The people mounted Samantha’s breasts, her legs and arms. Two fingers were broken. She was heavily soiled.”
Popular sex doll Samantha finally breaks down after a lot of customers heavily massaged… https://t.co/BdBjHpE7rW pic.twitter.com/E4JTWUP81E
— Cingey (@Cingey_us) September 27, 2017
Where is all this heading
With the current advancements in technology and AI we could be looking at fully operable sex slaves at relatively low prices within the decade, with changeable heads, breasts and genitals, programmable voice and personality. With the media slowly normalising such things, an AI Sex Robot to satisfy sexual desires in men and women could likely be considered normal within a couple of generations. You only have to look at how hardcore porn has been normalised within society over the past 20 years. Pornography is now easily accessible for anyone with Internet access and few parents seem to consider this an issue.
I don’t have a problem with Harmony or Samantha, the technology and engineering behind it are fascinating, as someone who studied in Artificial Intelligence for several years over a decade ago, seeing it begin to be placed into real life use cases is interesting to see, if a little scary. The problem lies with us, humans as a species and those within our social structures who will use the weakness of others to suit their own needs or agenda.
Personally, I prefer a real woman who was born from a woman and not from a production line. Call me old fashioned but I prefer a woman to not need her batteries changing every few hours or catch on fire when we go for a swim together!
AI sex dolls are meant to gratify the emotionally crippled who express themselves through control and power over something that won’t/can’t resist in order to satisfy their animalistic urges. What happened at the tech fair proves that.