At last! The AI robot girlfriend is here

[Vastatosaurus Rex]

People with the money to buy state of the art robotic mannequins will find no shortage of attractive human females.

That was exactly what I was going to say.

[Broomstick]

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?

On the other hand - a child-looking sexbot with a child's mentality might be enough to keep some pedophiles occupied and away from real children... which is arguably a good thing for society.

That better be self cleaning.

Ew. Yes, please. Forget walking and talking, make it self-douching.

[Broomstick]

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

Except for the details that a human clone is a real human being with a real brain and personality, and that keeping a human clone as a sex toy is slavery... um, sure. Just don't worry about the ethics of such a thing.

[Singular Intellect]

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?

On the other hand - a child-looking sexbot with a child's mentality might be enough to keep some pedophiles occupied and away from real children... which is arguably a good thing for society.

That's a goood point, Broomstick.

I could see some people suggesting that would only encourage the behavior though (retarded logic, but you just know it'll pop up).

[Zixinus]

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

Not if the doll acts realistically enough. An AI, for one, does not have the capacity to suffer and will find its own sexual exploitation by its owner a good thing. Thus it will actively SEEK and DESIRE to do it. An AI only has to act emotions, thus does not have the emotional requirements of a real person (then of course is the philosophic problem of what happens if the AI thinks that its emotions ARE "real").
The most deep problem would be enough refinement: I have little doubt that the sexdoll in the article will be highly improved by halfway this century (assuming GlobalWarming-NuclearWar-OilWars doesn't kill us all).

Meanwhile, for a human (which is what a clone is really) the same thing would be horrible and would be prostitution at best and rapist slavery at worst.

On the other hand - a child-looking sexbot with a child's mentality might be enough to keep some pedophiles occupied and away from real children... which is arguably a good thing for society.

Yeah, but the problem is that then the pedophiles would then be encouraged to act on their destructive desire. It would only be a matter of opportunity for a paedophile to do what he normally does on a real, human child instead of a sexbot.

[Broomstick]

On the other hand - a child-looking sexbot with a child's mentality might be enough to keep some pedophiles occupied and away from real children... which is arguably a good thing for society.

Yeah, but the problem is that then the pedophiles would then be encouraged to act on their destructive desire. It would only be a matter of opportunity for a paedophile to do what he normally does on a real, human child instead of a sexbot.

Hmm.... maybe if it was combined with some form of conditioning (or threat of punishment) to help focus urges on the sexbot rather than real children...

It may not work in all circumstances, but it might work in some. Not all pedophiles act on their urges, there are cases of men who remain entirely celibate because they know their sexual impulses are wrong and do not get in trouble with the law. There probably are a sub-group of pedophiles for whom sufficiently realistic sexbots would be acceptable outlet for their urges, thereby reducing the chances of them harming a real child. There are also, no doubt, some pedophiles who really are unrepentant monsters who must be kept locked up away from society, too.

[Ariphaos]

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.

Difficult is fine. I'll take difficult over the legal and ethical issues surrounding cloning any day. I was talking about twenty years of additional research behind every conceivable field, after all.

On the other hand - a child-looking sexbot with a child's mentality might be enough to keep some pedophiles occupied and away from real children... which is arguably a good thing for society.

I would much rather see a cure administered, honestly. There is a point at which mental issues are sufficiently disruptive that we should not, as a society, have to compensate for them, rather than solve them.

[Broomstick]

That's a great sentiment, the main problem with it being there is no cure at present for pedophilia. We can offer only imprisonment or, if the individual has sufficient strength of will, complete celibacy in regards to those urges.

I agree, a cure would be much preferable but as we don't have one all we can offer, at best, is management of the problem. Until their is a cure, I don't have an issue with better management tools.

[Ariphaos]

That's a great sentiment, the main problem with it being there is no cure at present for pedophilia. We can offer only imprisonment or, if the individual has sufficient strength of will, complete celibacy in regards to those urges.

I agree, a cure would be much preferable but as we don't have one all we can offer, at best, is management of the problem. Until their is a cure, I don't have an issue with better management tools.

There are no child-sized androids or gynoids, either. They are by nature going to be more difficult to produce, as well.