At last! The AI robot girlfriend is here

[aerius]

Unfortunately she doesn't cook or clean, but otherwise she's fully functional.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/my- ... -m0tk.html

My girlfriend's hot, but she has a built-in cooling system
GLENN CHAPMAN
January 11, 2010

LAS VEGAS: Roxxxy the sex robot had a coming-out party in Sin City at the weekend.

In what is billed as a world first, a life-size robotic girlfriend complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin was introduced to adoring fans at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas on Saturday.

''She can't vacuum, she can't cook, but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean,'' said her inventor, Douglas Hines, of the company TrueCompanion.

''She's a companion. She has a personality. She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks. She feels your touch. She goes to sleep. We are trying to replicate a personality of a person.''

At 170-centimetres tall and 54.43 kilograms, Roxxxy ''has a full C cup and is ready for action'', said Hines, who was an artificial intelligence engineer at Bell Laboratories before he started up TrueCompanion.

The anatomically correct robot has an articulated skeleton, which means it can move like a person even though it cannot walk or move its limbs independently.

Robotic movement is built into ''the three inputs'' and a mechanical heart that powers a liquid cooling system.

Roxxxy comes with five personalities. Wild Wendy is outgoing and adventurous. Frigid Farrah is reserved and shy. There is a young and naive personality and a Mature Martha that Hines describes as having a ''matriarchal kind of caring''. S&M Susan is geared for more adventurous types.

Aspiring partners can customise such features as race, hair colour and breast size. A male sex robot named Rocky is in development.

People ordering the robots online at truecompanion.com detail their tastes and interests to get the mechanical girlfriend in synch with her mate.

''She knows exactly what you like,'' says Hines. ''If you like Porsches, she likes Porsches. If you like soccer, she likes soccer.'' Roxxxy can chat with her flesh-and-blood mate, and touching her elicits a variety of comments.

Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001 attacks. ''I had a friend who passed away in 9/11,'' Hines said. ''I promised myself I would create a program to store his personality, and that became the foundation for Roxxxy True Companion.''

Hines sees the robot as a recreational innovation and an outlet for the shy, people with sexual dysfunction and those who want to experiment without risk.

Roxxxy costs between $US7000 ($7634) and $US9000 depending on features.

Hey Starglider, is this the secret AI project you've been working on?

[Oskuro]

*looks at pic in linked article* Way to go, man, but how about making her actually good looking?

Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001 attacks. ''I had a friend who passed away in 9/11,'' Hines said. ''I promised myself I would create a program to store his personality, and that became the foundation for Roxxxy True Companion.''

I mean, who doesn't want their deaths to be the inspiration for a high tech sex doll?

[Rogue 9]

*looks at pic in linked article* Way to go, man, but how about making her actually good looking?

Inspiration for the sex robot sprang from the September 11, 2001 attacks. ''I had a friend who passed away in 9/11,'' Hines said. ''I promised myself I would create a program to store his personality, and that became the foundation for Roxxxy True Companion.''

I mean, who doesn't want their deaths to be the inspiration for a high tech sex doll?

Must have been an interesting friend.

[Starglider]

Hey Starglider, is this the secret AI project you've been working on?

No, but I've often been tempted, because (as this proves) there are lots of desperate people with money to burn and it doesn't take much to grab them. Of course they're going to say chatbot + speech recognition + fleshlight + realdoll = amazing android girlfriend, massive hype is par for the course in AI. Though actually I'm surprised it took this long for someone to make one, the technology has been there since oh 2002 or so.

[Questor]

I have to admit the idea of this kind of thing creeps me out a bit. It doesn't seem like the doll actually moves... and that would be very creepy.

But I have to wonder how long that plotline would have gone on on Boston Legal with one of these things rather than a blowup doll.

[Singular Intellect]

When they make the Summur Glau model with the interactivity capabilities of the Terminator persona she portrayed in TSCC, get back to me!

[Eleas]

When they make the Summur Glau model with the interactivity capabilities of the Terminator persona she portrayed in TSCC, get back to me!

I'd love it, if only for the amusement value of watching your deathmatch with Shroom Man over exclusive access to her, um, "milkbags"...

In all seriousness though, the most difficult task in creating a truly "human-like" being appears to allow a skeletal robot to support itself. Starglider, you must have tried your hand at the idea. How difficult is it to account for asymmetry/variable symmetry of mass and the like? Currently close to impossible?

[Shroom Man 777]

When they make the Summur Glau model with the interactivity capabilities of the Terminator persona she portrayed in TSCC, get back to me!

I'd love it, if only for the amusement value of watching your deathmatch with Shroom Man over exclusive access to her, um, "milkbags"...

A REAL Robot River?!

In all seriousness though, the most difficult task in creating a truly "human-like" being appears to allow a skeletal robot to support itself. Starglider, you must have tried your hand at the idea. How difficult is it to account for asymmetry/variable symmetry of mass and the like? Currently close to impossible?

[/quote]

Hard to do on the cheap, but if she's a fuckbot all she needs to do is squirm around and undulate on the bed, she doesn't actually have to stand around and walk.

Man, she reminds me of that sexdoll from another Meatbag Cameron (Summer Glau) movie. The robotic sextoy wife of Mr. Universe from the Serenity movie!

[Starglider]

In all seriousness though, the most difficult task in creating a truly "human-like" being appears to allow a skeletal robot to support itself.

Not at all. That's actually one of the relatively easy challenges. Which is to say that it is merely very hard, rather than ridiculously hard. Unless you mean 'looks human', without asking for speech or problem solving.

Starglider, you must have tried your hand at the idea.

Actually, no. I have only done a little work in robotics and none of it was with walking robots.

How difficult is it to account for asymmetry/variable symmetry of mass and the like? Currently close to impossible?

The programming is actually relatively straightforward. It's similar to the technology that animates the character models in 'Grand Theft Auto 4' and assorted CGI movie battle scenes. It's a servo-control problem for a rigid articulated body with a moderate number of degrees of freedom. It can be solved with decent conventional software engineers, and some people have solved it with neural networks and genetic algorithms - for simulated robots.

Thus this is one of the few AI subproblems where the hardware is more difficult. Building servos and sensors with the required accuracy, response time and power-to-weight ratio, and integrating them into a robust and affordable mobile platform, is hard. The basic problem is now solved, as this video demonstrates, but the resulting robot is fairly bulky and the movements rather inhuman. My guess is that squeezing that into a sexy human shape, pulling it out of the uncanny valley a bit and bringing the cost down by an order of magnitude so that it can be mass marketed will take the hardware people another decade. Basic vision and nav is also coming along just fine without needing any general AI concepts; as shown here.

Of course without radical advances solving the deep AI problems the result will be about as bright as a somewhat retarded dog, but I'm sure that will suit some customers just fine.

[Singular Intellect]

When they make the Summur Glau model with the interactivity capabilities of the Terminator persona she portrayed in TSCC, get back to me!

I'd love it, if only for the amusement value of watching your deathmatch with Shroom Man over exclusive access to her, um, "milkbags"...

Wouldn't be long entertainment, I think I could take Shroom pretty damn quickly.

On topic though, I wonder just how mentally handi-capped the men would be willing to have their robot 'lover/companion' be, in trade for cosmetic appearances (maybe that's a redundant question, given the information provided here to begin with).

I certainly think it would be creepy having the mentality of a child (and we haven't even gotten that far yet). Does the humanoid form of adulthood really turn the switch for some people with regards to mental capability?

[dragon]

Hum wonder how long before that and the Japanese Robotic bodies are put together. The ones that are capable of walking.

[Themightytom]

That better be self cleaning.

[Oskuro]

By the way, why is the first reaction to lament that she doesn't cook or clean?

If they were to make a ROBOT RIVER version, rather than cooking it should be made as an actual security robot, so you can say "nobody fucks with my security but ME!"

[Sarevok]

Is there a market for these things ? I mean they have to cost huge amounts of money. People with the money to buy state of the art robotic mannequins will find no shortage of attractive human females.

[Singular Intellect]

Is there a market for these things ?

Without a doubt there is.

I mean they have to cost huge amounts of money. People with the money to buy state of the art robotic mannequins will find no shortage of attractive human females.

Real women require things like a two way relationship and generally don't look to be treated like a disposable toy the instant the guy get's his rock's off.

Sure, there's women out there who probably don't mind that kind of relationship, but then their end of the relationship deal is usually with the guy's money, which is going to be quite a bit more than a one time purchase of the artificial woman robot.

[Zor]

Is there a market for these things ? I mean they have to cost huge amounts of money. People with the money to buy state of the art robotic mannequins will find no shortage of attractive human females.

Think of the economics of it. There are people who will pay over a $1,000 for an hour with an attractive prostitute. For a lump sum $9,000 you could potentially have hundreds of hours of sex available in your own home, as well as the admitedly mindless smalltalk.

This is leaving aside the fact that there are already people with Harems of Realdolls.

Zor

[Bounty]

For a lump sum $9,000 you could potentially have hundreds of hours of sex available in your own home

If you assume this assisted masturbation is in any way comparable to sex. Barring moral objections to prostitution, and the acting out of kinks that would backfire on real women, this is really just warmed-over necrophilia for the chronically lonely.

[Starglider]

For a lump sum $9,000 you could potentially have hundreds of hours of sex available in your own home

If you assume this assisted masturbation is in any way comparable to sex.

I think he was referring to future versions with human-like movement. Which should be fairly similar to any other sex as far as physical experience is involved (remember to fill up the internal lube tank...). Obviously the emotional dimension is missing, or entirely fanciful, but let's face it plenty of casual sex occurs with no emotional connection.

[Sarevok]

In the future can't you go to North Korea or similar unethical place with sufficient technology and need for money and order an actual human clone to have sex with ? No one has made any progress in mind uploads or convincing human like software driving robots yet. Meanwhile cloning has made great progress and state sponsored research could succesfully clone a human. Unscrupulous nations could try to tap into the market for lonely rich people with need for sex only. I imagine a clone of a person of ones choice would be far far more fulfilling than a doll with microprocessors.

[Starglider]

In the future can't you go to North Korea or similar unethical place with sufficient technology and need for money and order an actual human clone to have sex with ? No one has made any progress in mind uploads or convincing human like software driving robots yet. Meanwhile cloning has made great progress and state sponsored research could succesfully clone a human.

Why would you bother? Cloning produces babies that are identical twins of an existing human. You still have to raise them, feed them, wait for them to reach sexual maturity etc. The only possible use of cloning (in prostitution) would be creating duplicates of celebrities, but you'd need to steal a genetic sample and frankly plastic surgery is much easier, cheaper and just as effective. Even if you could handwave the massive cost, cloning would have no advantage over just forcing your population to have more babies. Certainly third world hellholes aren't going to do it.

Unscrupulous nations could try to tap into the market for lonely rich people with need for sex only.

Cloned humans are still humans, with all the legal rights of humans. Importing a cloned human into any civilised nation runs the same legal perils

I imagine a clone of a person of ones choice would be far far more fulfilling than a doll with microprocessors.

I really doubt that many people are desperate to have a partner that looks exactly like a particular celebrity. Most men just want really hot women. A clone is otherwise exactly like a normal human partner. The attraction of sex robots is that they will never say no, or be angry or jealous or ill or 'not in the mood'. They will do anything you ask without question (excepting carefully calculated fake contrariness that you might dial in). If they break down, they can be repaired, and if one is destroyed or stolen, you can just buy a new one with exactly the same appearance and behaviour. I'm certain there will be a thriving community of amateurs programming new behavior routines (e.g. sex positions, chatbot conversation trees) for these things.

[aerius]

And you don't have to buy shoes for the robot sex slave.
It'll be spending all its time barefoot and on its back. Or on its knees. Or bent over a chair.

[Ariphaos]

Or doing chores. Roomba sexbot chef available in male and female editions.

In the future can't you go to North Korea or similar unethical place with sufficient technology and need for money and order an actual human clone to have sex with ? No one has made any progress in mind uploads or convincing human like software driving robots yet. Meanwhile cloning has made great progress and state sponsored research could succesfully clone a human. Unscrupulous nations could try to tap into the market for lonely rich people with need for sex only. I imagine a clone of a person of ones choice would be far far more fulfilling than a doll with microprocessors.

Assuming they started this project now, you'd have your clone ready in about two decades. Two decades worth of materials, sensory, bandwidth, fabrication, gene therapy, health and electromechanical research, versus a human clone. The clone may very well be quite impressive - nubile, athletic, extremely healthy with a made to order personality.

Even ignoring AI development, though, future sex bots would not be hard to link up to a partner on the other side of the country - or planet. The moon might be a stretch. No worries of diseases, unwanted pregnancy, ethical issues, lack of emotional attachment, concerns over personal attractiveness or state. Virility and endurance will only be a problem assuming improvements in human health stagnate for some reason.

If you want the subservient (or personality to taste) AI version, you can get that, too. It can even be self-maintaining.

[Starglider]

Even ignoring AI development, though, future sex bots would not be hard to link up to a partner on the other side of the country - or planet.

Doing that realistically would be difficult. Not AI-level difficult, but it's a significant engineering challenge. Even assuming you have two sex bots (one at each end, each morphologically close to the users) so that no VR is required, you need reliable full body motion tracking, ideally of naked people. There will inevitably be differences in geometry that prevent a direct motion mapping, plus sensor errors, so some smart interpolation will be required, plus assorted safety protocols to prevent injury when something inevitably crashes.

OTOH just making the bot controlled by some buttons on a web interface would be easy. If and when these things are common it will be easy for phone sex line companies to include 'sex bot driving' along with the dirty talk.

[Styphon]

I'm certain there will be a thriving community of amateurs programming new behavior routines (e.g. sex positions, chatbot conversation trees) for these things.

Paraphrasing someone from a different board where the same idea came up: do you really want to let 4chan program your sexbot?

[Norseman]

I'm certain there will be a thriving community of amateurs programming new behavior routines (e.g. sex positions, chatbot conversation trees) for these things.

Paraphrasing someone from a different board where the same idea came up: do you really want to let 4chan program your sexbot?

4Chan? What about Gurochan?

Of course what I'm really wondering about is whether or not these sex-dolls will be banned or have their programming limited somehow in order to comply with anti-pornography laws, whether they are enacted by religious fundamentalists or feminists.