73home is where the robot is
to purchase female beings and sexually exploit them” (Ekberg, 2004,
p. 1210). In these countries, the number of men who buy prostituted
women has decreased and the local prostitution markets have become
less lucrative, with the result that trackers choose other and more
protable destinations (Ekberg, 2004; Raymond, 2008). Sex robots
could become popular in these countries—like sex dolls, which are
now popular in South Korea due to the enforced ban on prostitution.
But in countries where prostitution has been legalized, sex robots could
also contribute to solving the problem of sex slavery and the tracking
of women as the quality of their sexual services is comparable to those
of their human counterparts, and this could contribute to a decrease in
the demand for human prostitutes.
Yeoman and Mars (2011) present a futuristic scenario about sex
tourism in Amsterdam. In 2050, Amsterdam’s well-known red-light
district will be all about android prostitutes who are clean of sexually
transmitted infections (STIs), not about prostitutes who are smuggled
in from Eastern Europe and forced into slavery, and the city council
will have direct control over android sex workers, controlling prices,
hours of operations, and sexual services. ey conclude that if “such
a proposition came true Amsterdam would probably be the safest
and best sex tourism destination in world and all the social problems
associated with sex tourism would disappear overnight” (Yeoman &
Mars, 2011, p. 370).
According to Levy, the benets of sex robots create their own ethi-
cal justication, and the majority of the population will also come to
see sex robots as “the ethical choice” because of their positive eects.
Yet Levy also sees a downside to this development of sex robots,
namely the forced resignation of redundant human prostitutes: “is
problem, the compulsory redundancy of sex workers, is an important
ethical issue, since in many cases those who turn to prostitution as
their occupation do so because they have literally no other way to
earn the money they need” (Levy, 2007b). Danaher (2014) has some
doubts about whether prostitution is just as vulnerable to technological
unemployment as other forms of human labor. He argues that there is
a compelling case for the alternative hypothesis that the demand for
and supply of human sexual labor is likely to remain competitive in
the face of sex robots. His argument is based on his belief that “the
preference for human sex partners could be a signicant factor when it
74 Just ordinAry robots
comes to the future of human prostitution, despite the alleged advan-
tages of sex robots” (Danaher, 2014, p. 123), and is coupled with his
thesis that technological unemployment in other industries is likely to
increase the supply of human prostitutes.
2.4.3 Social and Ethical Issues
2.4.3.1 Cultural Acceptance of Sex Robots e demand for sex robots
will probably be relatively small in the short term because of the current
high price, although people seem to be interested: according to a 2009
poll by IEEE,* 37% of the respondents answered that they would pre-
fer a sex robot to the question: “If you had a personal robot that could
do only one thing, which ability would you prefer it to have?” Levy
(2007b) expects that the sex robot will soon be introduced in the pros-
titution industry, because for most people renting a sex robot is the only
option if they want to experiment with it. Levy predicts the expected
success of the sex robot from the earlier successes of renting sex dolls in
Japan and Korea.
†
Especially in South Korea, sex doll brothels are a big
hit, says Levy, because there all human prostitution is prohibited. An
hour with a doll costs about U.S. $25. Levy concludes that if renting
sex dolls has been a success, then this will also apply to sex robots too.
In response to this prospect, Amanda Kloer even sees robots as perfect
prostitutes, but she inserts a note:
In a way, robots would be the perfect prostitutes. ey have no shame,
feel no pain, and have no emotional or physical fall-out from the trauma
which prostitution often causes. As machines, they can’t be victims of
human tracking. It would certainly end the prostitution/human traf-
cking debate. But despite all the arguments I can think of for this
being a good idea, I’ve gotta admit it creeps me out a little bit. Have
we devalued sex so much that is doesn’t even matter if what we have
sex with isn’t human? Has the commercial sex industry made sex so
mechanical that it will inevitably become … mechanical?
‡
*
http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/print/3573.
†
Japanese advertisements for these sex dolls even go as far as to claim that cus-
tomers will never want a real girlfriend again (see http://www.hungtonpost.
co.uk/2014/08/13/dutch-wives-sex-doll-toy-japan_n_5674461.html).
‡
http://news.change.org/stories/are-robots-the-future-of-prostitution.
75home is where the robot is
After their rst introduction in the prostitution industry, the price of
sex robots will drop, and they will become available to a wider audi-
ence. In an interview in 2008, Levy pictures hordes of men with a lack
of social contact who nd it dicult to enter into a relationship with
a woman. ese men are desperate for a sex partner who transcends
the level of the inatable doll, he says. If the media then get wind of
this new trend, according to Levy, the acceptance of sex robots will
proceed at a fast pace.* One key question, however, is whether people
really would want to have sex with a robot. A survey conducted among
2000 members of the British public by Middlesex University in 2014
found that 17% of people are prepared to “have sex with an android,”
whereas 29% said they had no problem with machines being used in
this way. Forty-one percent of respondents said that they found the
idea uncomfortable, and 14% said that in their view robots should not
be used for sex.
†
e possibility of having sex with robots may reduce the incidence
of cheating on a partner and adultery. ere is still the question of
whether having robot sex would be considered as being unfaithful, or
whether robot sex would become just as humdrum and innocent as
the use of a vibrator nowadays (Maines, 1999). e main dierence
between a sex robot and a vibrator is that the idea of a sex robot is
that it would be a stand-in for a human being (and therefore would be
too much like really having sex with another human), in contrast to
a vibrator, which is not meant to be a replacement for a human being
but it is meant to create a certain kind of pleasure. According to Greta
Christina (2014), the whole idea of a sex robot would be that it would
be like having sex with a person, except without all that pesky busi-
ness of it having desires and limits of its own. is last remark leads
to the ethical issue of dehumanization.
2.4.3.2 Dehumanization e rationalization of sex with sex robots
leads to the fact, as Amanda Koer expressed it, that sex is made
mechanical. Levy only sees the advantages of mechanical sex with
robots, since robots “behave in ways that one nds empathetic,
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7FENChv6v4#t=185.
†
www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/06/third-of-britons-fear-rise-of- robots-
poll.
76 Just ordinAry robots
always being loyal and having a combination of social, emotional,
and intellectual skills that far exceeds the characteristics likely to
be found in a human friend” (Levy, 2007a, p.107). According to
Levy, it is almost a moral imperative that we work to make these
theoretical robotic companions a reality, because these robots could
add so much love and happiness to our world. Unlike Levy, Turkle
(2011) states that the use of sex robots, rather than leading to social-
ization, will result in de-socialization (social de-skilling, see also
the previous section). Sex will become purely a physical act without
commitment and even caring rather than a loving act. She describes
a trend toward rejecting authentic human relationships for socia-
ble, human-like robots, and asks herself the question what kind of
people we are becoming as we develop increasingly intimate rela-
tionships with machines. Sullins (2012, p. 408) responds that Levy
ignores the deep and nuanced notions of love and the concord of
true friendship:
While it is given that robots can be built that people nd sexually
attractive, it is unlikely that a machine can be built that will be capable
of building an erotic relationship between itself and the user. Instead,
with these technologies as they are currently evolving, we have an
engineering scheme that would only satisfy, but not truly satisfy, our
physical and emotional needs, while doing nothing for our moral
growth.
Furthermore, sex robots are “simulacra” for sex with a human being,
with the danger that we may mistake sex with a robot for true love,
which robots can never give (cf. Sparrow, 2002).
2.4.3.3 Sex with Child Robots Finally, the issue of sex with child-
like robots needs to be addressed. is is a new issue for lawyers
and ethicists. In contrast to child pornography, which is illegal in
most countries, the use of child robots does not involve any direct
harm to children. Child pornography causes harm in its production
and/or its dissemination. We can compare sex with a child robot
with sex with a child avatar. In both cases, no direct harm to chil-
dren is involved. In 2002, the Supreme Court in the Ashcroft v. Free
Speech Coalition case ruled that virtual child pornography (in which
77home is where the robot is
young adults or computer-generated characters play the parts of chil-
dren) is protected by the First Amendment and cannot be criminal-
ized. In 2003, however, the PROTECT Act was passed into law to
attack pandering to and solicitation of child pornography regardless
of whether the material consisted of computer-generated images or
even of adults who looked like children, or even if the material was
fraudulent or did not exist at all. In the United Kingdom, “visual
depictions featuring child abuse which appear to be photographic
have been deemed illegal by both statute (the Children Act 1978)
and courts (R. v Bowden 2001 QB 88, 2000 2 All ER 418) using
the phrase pseudo- photographs” (Adams, 2010, p. 64), which means
an image, whether made by computer graphics or in any other way
whatsoever, which appears to be a photograph, including lm. Also,
in the Netherlands in 2011, a court held that possession of virtual
child pornography is punishable.* e reasoning was that virtual
child pornography could become part of a subculture that pro-
motes sexual abuse of children. Based on this verdict, a judge in the
Netherlands will probably criminalize sex with child robots at some
point in the future, but the problem here will be that the law would
be overstretched. According to the current legislation in most coun-
tries, having sex with child robots is not regulated (Bamps, 2012).
e legislature probably could not have foreseen the development of
robotics that enables sex with robots and therefore also sex with body
robots that are built like children. e question is how the legislature
would envisage dealing with those who have sex with child robotics.
If we wish to suppress a subculture that promotes sexual abuse of
children, there should be a legal framework for child–robot pornog-
raphy. If law is seen as a public expression of morality, then such a
legal framework is necessary, since 90% of the respondents of a 2010
questionnaire were against the development of child robotics for the
satisfaction of sexual needs (Bamps, 2012).
Robot ethicists have also interfered with the issue of sex with
child robots. In 2014, there was an event called Our Robot Future at
the University of California where robot experts also discussed this
topic. According to Ronald Arkin, who does not approve of child
*
Rb. Rotterdam, March 31, 2011, LJN BP 9776, www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie/
Rechtbanken/Rotterdam/Nieuws/Pages/Bezit-virtuele-kinderporno-strafbaar.aspx.
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