Uh, a little late to the party, this internet meme is. My wife already has sex with a robot. And it is a simple, cheap one. There are much more elaborate machines and robots to be had right now.

Is it human like? No. Does it get the job done? Yes. Put it into a Real Doll, and not much more work is left...

I don't see the big deal. Women have been using vibrators for decades.

The problem for men is that physcially simulating what gives us pleasure is much more difficult. Besides the vexing issue of fabricating something similar enough to a woman's sexual orifices, for men visual stimuli is very important and it's very hard to make an object that looks and moves enough like a woman to fool our hindbrain without triggering trigger the "hey that's creepy not sexy" response. We have exquisitely sensitive and detailed specifications for what a healthy, fertile woman needs to look like to provoke a sexual response, and beyond that to signal our status-monitoring centers that we are indeed nailing a hottie.

So, yes, there will be sexbots that look like 16-year-old cheerleaders, once the technology is there, and they will make life a lot better for men. Women will not like it, because it will upset the paradigm of sex being a scarce resource that men want more than women, giving women a certain power over men. I expect there will be efforts to outlaw realistic sexbots, but ultimately it will happen somewhere.

Robots do not want to have sex with you

In Scotland, you can be put on a sex offenders register for having sex behind closed doors with a bicycle.

I fear the precedent for banning the unnature union of human and robot is already in place.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/26/nsex126.xml

I really enjoy reading your blog, it always has great insight. But I am very frustrated with the media’s lack of questions to the presidential candidates about global warming.

The Daily Green just put an article out talking about how the presidential candidates are not being asked where they stand on the issue of the climate change - this is surprising to me considering its such a MAJOR concern to people. I just saw a poll on www.EarthLab.com that says people care a lot what their next leader thinks about global warming (after you take it they show you the results). Does anyone know of another poll or other results about this subject?

If not, go to http://www.earthlab.com/life.aspx and take their poll to see which way the results go. This is a pretty legit website; they are endorsed by Al Gore and the alliance for climate protection and they have a carbon footprint calculator. No matter which political party you vote for this is an important issue for our environment, our economy and for homeland security.

As a female, I think sex with a properly programmed robot would be just fine. Could beat a vibrator in all areas. Why all this emphasis on what men want?

Alex -

I'm a believer in anthropogenic global warming. However - it isn't a recent thing. Instead, it dates back to the dawn of agriculture. Look up Ruddiman's paper on anthropogenic global warming. Ice core studies show that if it weren't for global warming, we'd be just about at the bottom of a cold cycle now.

How cold would that be? Think polar bears chasing penguins on the beach at Panama cold. Think brass monkey ball-dropping cold. Think about a glaciated, uninhabitable Canada cold, with major glaciers across most of the US.

Think humanity reduced to a few hundred thousand hunter-gatherer cold. Think flint-headed spear as the height of technology cold.

Now, my friend - I've got a question for you that I've NEVER seen any global warming enthusiast answer.

What should the thermostat be set at? What's the global temperature, regardless of natural or unnatural swings, supposed to be maintained at? And for some extra points - how are we supposed to get the world temperature to that idyllic point, and maintain it there? And what would the repercussions be to humanity at large?

Take your 'global warming, AlGore Approved' cut&paste ad for your poll and stick it in the freezer.

Now, back to the actual response to the post.

As far as robot sex goes... I'm... ambivalent. I can see threesomes - man, robot, and woman, and everyone having a humpin' good time for a while. But you know, I think after a while good old human-human sex would win out. There's virtual reality - and then there's REAL reality. Sweat, smell, pheremones, unpredictability, spontaneous responses...

The robot may end up with the bicycle. THAT shouldn't be against the law!

J.

Does anyone see that robot sex could conceivably mean the end of human reproduction (why mate with a real person if a robot is much more available and/or exciting).

Does anyone see that robot sex could conceivably mean the end of human reproduction...

Yup. That's why the Space Pope sez: Don't date robots!

(Search YouTube for "I Dated a Robot" from Futurama.)

It is ironic that on a thread about human-like robots, we have "alex", an obvious but quite well designed Gore-bot spam post. It looks like we will have robot opinionators well before anything fun.

I'm dubious that robots will completely replace Significant Others. For one thing, if they can't say no, or choose their sexual partners, they can't gratify your ego by preferring *you*. Nor can you boast to your buddies about your Orgasmatron 3000 when they can go to the local Orgasmatron store and get the exact same model. As others have pointed out, vibrators have existed for years yet I haven't noticed vast herds of nookie-less men roaming around.

Robot sex partners (for men, anyway) will simply be much fancier, much more expensive blow-up dolls. Plus, those of us who are interested in our partners loving us will not be satisfied by robots, because a robot will not be able to love you. (To be honest, I am immensely skeptical that anything even approaching a robot with human-type reactions will be available in 50 years.) Basically, it will amount to expensive masturbation.