Monday, February 17, 2020

Unregulated use of companion robots

The British BBC reports:
US researchers have warned that the availability of sex robots with artificial intelligence (AI) poses a growing psychological and moral threat to individuals and society.

They say the technology is escaping oversight because agencies are too embarrassed to investigate it.

The scientists want action to prevent the unregulated use of such robots. ...

Kathleen Richardson, who is a professor of the Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at De Montfort University in Leicester, wants this kind of marketing outlawed.

"These companies are saying, 'you don't have a friendship? You don't have a life partner? Don't worry we can create a robot girlfriend for you'.

"A relationship with a girlfriend is based on intimacy, attachment and reciprocity. These are things that can't be replicated by machines," she said.

Prof Richardson advises a pressure group that has been set up to monitor the emergence of these products. The campaign against sex robots is working with policy experts to draw up legislation aimed at banning claims that companion robots can be a substitute for human relationships.
"Are we going to move into a future where we keep normalising the idea of women as sex objects?" she told BBC News.
For centuries, people have gotten companion dogs as substitutes for human relationships. Why not robots?

Maybe we should ban dogs and cats. And if you want laws against normalizing the idea of women as sex objects, then you should want to ban lipstick, and other such things.

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