FUTURE HUMAN
There Are a Lot of Problems with Sex Robots
From body weight and batteries to programming and consent, there’s nothing straightforward about sexbots. But they’re coming anyway.
In a promotional video, robot designer Dr. Sergi Santos runs his finger inside the mouth of his Samantha sexbot. “Uhhh,” she moans. Sergi touches the doll’s hand, and she moans again. “She felt that,” he says, “and she’s actually getting quite horny.” Samantha is not, of course, getting horny. Samantha is a nearly inanimate object, which, by definition, is incapable of horniness — as well as hungriness, loneliness, suspiciousness, and even obliviousness. Samantha feels nothing, even if Santos wants her to.
A replication of a woman’s form, Samantha embodies the popular understanding of a sex robot — a gynoid. In today’s sex robot industry, there’s no wiggle room for gender variety or sexual orientation in sexbots: they’re made to delight heterosexual men. Shaped like women with female voices and feminine traits, these conventionally sexified robots act like extremely expensive masturbation sleeves. With no emotional fuss, little physical muss, and only one outlay of cash (until there’s an upgrade), these sexbots represent a certain kind of man’s ideal side piece.
