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Daria Sukharchuk is a journalist based in Berlin, where she works as a news anchor for Russian-language OstWest.tv. Her writing has appeared in Motherboard and ZEIT Online, Cosmopolitan, as well as Afisha (Moscow's leading city magazine). She specializes on the topic of human rights, migration, and mental health.
She has her BA in Chinese history, and, never having forgotten her history background, has also contributed to the educational project1917.com.
The idea of sex with robots is not new — but it has never been as close to entering our life as it is now. However, with the AI booming, we're about to see much more responsive robots that will be able to recognise human faces and behavioral patterns.
In this article, Quartz reporter talks to the Aimee van Wynsberghe, co-founder of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, who has a background in cell biology and ethics, about what the current development of robots for sex looks like. Her main concern is that currently, the sex dolls — what she calls precursors of the smarter future robots — are very much under the influence of pornography, and, like their "parent", only reinforce objectifying and even exploitative images of (mostly female) bodies. Sex dolls in their modern form already are a much-debated theme. Will they help humanity end the sexual exploitation and help cure sexual dysfunctions, or will they just normalise dangerous fetishes like pedophilia?
The current development of AI and robotics will soon allow us to create sexual partners that will fulfill our deepest fantasies — but do we want to share all this information with their manufacturers, without knowing what will happen to it? What kinds of regulations do we need to put in place before those robots go mainstream? Currently, none of these questions have answers.