Sex Robot Matters

Slavery, the Prostituted, and the Rights of Machines SEX ROBOT Matters Used with permission from REALDOLL.COM. Photos: Stacy Leigh. Kathleen Richardson lavery is the coercive and controlled over you that denies you a life of freedom. For most use of another human. Contrary to people in Europe and North America slavery is not the belief that the practice ended in a visible problem, and one could think slavery is the 1800s, slavery still persists to- somehow less important, and less violent today day. There are many different terms than in the past. This is not the case. The United used to describe slavery including, Nations estimates that almost 21 million people are debt bondage (a person’s pledge of currently victims of slavery [25]. A staggering labor for a debt or obligation), sale and exploita- $150billion in profits is generated from forced labor Stion of children, and human trafficking (forced la- and 168 million girls and boys are in child labor bor or commercial sexual exploitation). Sexual ex- [25]. Central to our understanding of slavery and its ploitation is the most commonly identified form of related forms is that a person is recast, often with- human trafficking (79%) followed by forced labor out bodily integrity, as property that can be bought, (18%) [52]. To be held in slavery is to be held in sold, and accessed by others with more power, sta- miserable conditions and have a form of power tus, and money. Why begin an article on Sex Robots, and the rights of machines, with an introduction to human slavery? Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2016.2554421 Date of publication: 2 June 2016 Because these themes are more interlinked than one 46 1932-4529/16©2016IEEE IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE ∕ JUNE 2016 might imagine, but perhaps not for the reasons you animists believe (through technology) that they can would think. Today philosophers of technology, technol- make the fantasy “come true,” i.e., that the inanimate ogists, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are proposing object can become real, even alive. that anthropomorphic robots should have rights. These The desire to animate the inanimate, or attribute elements posit that we are on the threshold of a new anthropomorphic qualities to nonhumans, is well docu- dawn of human-machine equivalence [13], [32], [46], mented, but technology has replaced magic as the phi- [55]. Moreover, some suggest that protecting anthropo- losopher’s stone to create life from the inanimate and morphic robots is a pathway to promoting human empa- lifeless. This is further echoed in texts that provide con- thy, further confusing the issue of what is a machine text for making the inanimate, animate. Take the recent [13]. Gunkel [55] furthers these perspectives by claiming publication of Capurro ((9); See also The Quest for Robo- that the exclusionary nature of human beings (for exam- ethics. A Survey) that cites many creation myths, includ- ple women or people of color) demonstrates that the ing the medieval Jewish story of the golem by Jada Lowe, moral status of others is varied across time and space. the Japanese Bunrakau tradition of puppetry, Genesis, He writes, automata, and Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR). Capur- ro draws on Aristotle’s famous text Politics [2] and refers The vindication of the rights of machines, there- to the passage [2, 1253b23], where Aristotle describes fore, is not simply a matter of extending moral slaves as “a living tool,” as well as to the desire animate consideration to one more historically excluded the inanimate. Capurro concludes that if the inanimate other. The question concerning the “rights of were animate, there would be no need for slaves. machines” makes a fundamental claim on ethics, requiring us to rethink the system of moral con- siderability all the way down [55, p. 53]. The desire to animate the inanimate, There are even others in the field of robotics who claim that intimate attachments can be established or attribute anthropomorphic qualities between humans and machines in the form of robots [30]. There are others who are adamant that robots/ to nonhumans, is well documented. machines are just things, and that they should be our “slaves” [7]. In this article I ask how a discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) and robots became fused with a discus- Let me introduce and emphasize the female as cre- sion of slavery, rights, and objects (animate and inani- ator. Through the act of producing children, a woman is mate), with these objects taking on the role of persons. creating actual life, a point that is often absent from These themes are brought together through a discus- these genealogical surveys of creation through time. sion of sex robots. I will pick up the mantel of these writers by introducing the myth of Pygmalion to discuss sex robots. Pygma- Pygmalion and Buying Sex lion was popularized by the Roman poet Ovid in his Anthropology, as the study of human cultures, explores epic poem, Metamorphoses [39]. Pygmalion grew tired how humans relate to each other, and how humans pro- of local prostitutes and decided to sculpt in “snow- duce artefacts and engage with their material environ- white ivory” a woman entirely of his own creation [27]. ments. The field of anthropology, along with The statue comes to life. In readings of this story, Pyg- co-connected disciplines of folklore, myth, and religion, malion represents another tale in this long lineage of has a well-developed literature on the topics of anthro- stories about male animation of the inanimate. But pomorphism and animism [19], [22]. what I want to suggest is that Pygmalion is not a story Anthropomorphism is attributing humanlike charac- about love, reciprocity, or empathy, but reflects a non- teristics to nonhuman animals and things, while ani- reciprocal encounter that underscores the imagination, mism is attributing life to the inanimate. While promotion, and development of sex robots, inspired by anthropomorphism and animism are topics associated power and coercion over women and girls. The sex with non-scientific and indigenous cultures, these robot is inspired by a non-empathetic form of encoun- anthropological themes, recurring through different cul- ter that is manifest in the sex trade, a gendered practice tures across space and time, are given new forms of of power where males (80% of the buyers of sex are expression in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and male), buy sex from women and girls [16]. Men and robotics [43]. “Technological” animists are differentiat- male children are also prostituted, females make up a ed from indigenous animists in that technological small proportion of the buyers of sex, and fortunately JUNE 2016 ∕ IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE 47 the living. With dolls, of course, we recall that children, in their early games, make no sharp distinc- Technology has replaced magic as tion between the animate and the inanimate and that they are especially fond of treating their dolls the philosopher’s stone to create life as if they were alive. from the inanimate and lifeless. At present there is no working definition of a sex robot, and in reality there are really no sex robots. The introduction of a robotic or AI programs into a doll is enough to claim it as a “sex-robot,” but these mechanis- not all men buy sex or consume pornography. There is tic dolls more closely resemble automata. A concern a strong movement now with males turning away from about sex robots is not driven by the technology, but by prostitution and pornography as they recognize the det- ideas and practices that are drawn on to make and pro- rimental effects on their intimate relationships, an issue mote these mechanical objects. These robotic sex dolls I believe will gain more ground over the next decade mimic human appearance, may run voice activated pro- [3], [18], [35]. grams, and have motors embedded in various parts of the robot body. Sex robots are building on doll-like plat- Sex Robots and Prostitution forms popularized by the work of Matt McMullen, an art- What is a sex robot? It is a doll with programs and ist and maker of RealDoll (www.realdolls.com). motors that is primarily imagined and/or produced in RealDolls are life sized dolls made with PVC skeletons the form of a woman or girl. The artistic representation with steel joints and silicone skin, but McMullen is also of the appearance of the human in objects is an histori- introducing technologies into these dolls such as voice cal accomplishment, with Renaissance artists able to activated programs. Also in the U.S., AI engineer Doug- produce realistic portraits of humans in two dimensions las Hine is developing a robotic platform, Roxxxy, pro- [5]. Since then, developments in the manufacturing of duced by the company TrueCompanion (www. artificial materials, such as silicon, have allowed dolls to truecompanion.com). The making of these dolls does look more lifelike than their predecessors. Making not stop at adults. In Japan, child sex dolls resembling objects appear lifelike provokes what Mashiro Mori [37] five year old girls are produced by company Trottla called “the uncanny valley.” This is where appearance (www.Trottla.com). and behavior are not congruent, causing discomfort and The dolls are modeled primarily on pornographic distress. Mori does not cite Sigmund Freud’s The Uncan- representations of women [27]. The speech programs in ny, written in 1919 [20], as a reference in his uncanny these robots are primarily focused on the buyer/owner valley paper, but Freud’s book addressed concerns of the model. While the pornography industry shapes about the making of anthropomorphic objects.1 the way the robots are designed in appearance (their In Freud’s writing, the uncanny is a strange and ethnicity and age are also important), the type of rela- uncomfortable eerie feeling that is triggered when a per- tionship that is used as the model for the buyer/owner son is uncertain of ontological categories about what is of the sex robot and the robot is inspired, not by an living or dead, animate or inanimate, real or artificial.

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