Among university roboticists, the scenario of humans having sex with robots is normally seen as inevitable. Further support for this (the assessment of robotics boffins’ worldview, not the likelihood of mechanised jigjig going mainstream) appeared last week, as a PhD thesis on the subject was defended at Maastricht University.

The author of the thesis, David Levy (described by the Dutch academics as “an International Master at chess from London”) contends that humans will not just be shagging robots in the near future, but also falling in love with them and marrying them.

“My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalise marriages with robots,” said Levy at a press conference.

“Once you have a story like ‘I had sex with a robot, and it was great!’ appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I’d expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” he said.

Levy reckoned that sex with robots would be on the cards well in advance of marriage, his views roughly chiming with those of Henrik Christensen, who reckons the first proper robo-rogering will happen in 2011.

Does this upset you as much as it does the article’s author?

First, I’m surprised he doesn’t know who David Levy is. Second, I wonder what tweaks his sexual hangups beyond masturbation.



  1. Ubiquitous Talking Head says:

    Harcourt! Harcourt Fenton Mudd!!!

    Nah.

    I prefer Vaugn Bode’s PEC’s.

  2. bobbo says:

    Cherry 2000? Sign me up!

  3. Kucing says:

    Why wait till 2050?
    You can get down and dirty with your roomba today!

  4. ethanol says:

    Watch Serenity recently? The character Mr. Universe married a robot…

  5. Noam Sane says:

    Robotic sex? My wife and I are WAY ahead of the curve, apparently.

  6. Improbus says:

    Once you get tired of them you can trade them in for a new model … wait, you can do that already. I think muting the volume would be a great feature.

  7. Miguel says:

    Remember that Twilight Zone episode where this guy was a prisoner on a barren planet with his loving and lovely wife, only to discover at the end that she was a robot? Maybe robot women will be better that the real things… Not a hard thing to accomplish 😉

  8. Peter says:

    2011 is pretty optimistic if you’re expecting humanoid robots as a precursor for robot sex (shagging, jigjig, rogering, or however you want to call it). Yeah there’s that walking robot from Japan, but come on. If you find a way to have sex with that thing, it’s because you’re too much of a geek to find a girlfriend. Love ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.

  9. GregA says:

    But will she play video games with me?

  10. Nicky says:

    This is simply ridiculous!

  11. GregA says:

    #8,

    Being to much of a geek has nothing to do with being able to get laid. It is the chronic masturbating that is the problem. Do geeks tend to have a chronic masturbating problem?? I think so, a lot of other people don’t think it is a problem. I think chronic masturbation short circuts a lot of what amounts to the human mating dance. Advance, reject, advance again, reject again, advance, give in. Chronic masturbators seem to lose interest after that first rejection… Which is supposed to be a part of the “dance”.

  12. Raff says:

    If it gives birth to an Ipod will I have to pay tech support?

  13. Joe B says:

    Maybe this educational short will explain why this is not a good idea:
    Don’t Date Robots!
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu0TXl15PgU

    Originally from Futurama, the original animation has been replace with Japanese animation.

  14. Dauragon88 says:

    12. ROFL!

    My initial response would be “thats fucking crazy!”. But I’m pretty sure if I hopped in a time machine, went back 50 years and told someone that in 2007 there would be a device that let me hold several records, find directions to your house and call my mom, they would probably say the same thing.

  15. Ben Waymark says:

    The simply fact of the matter is that making a male-sex robot will be much easier than making a female-sex robot. I am afraid that between this and cloning our one useful purpose in society is up gents. Look at any farm yard and you’ll see there are very few male animals, if any at all these days. And there is a reason for that, we just ain’t that useful.

  16. Anonymous says:

    [Message deleted – See Comment Guidelines. – ed.]

  17. mrmigu says:

    I wonder whether the religious nutjobs will get more upset over the fact that people are having sex with robots, or that they are having sex before marriage…..

  18. The Monster's Lawyer says:

    Sex with robots. What a dildo.

  19. widgethead says:

    Blade Runner was a superb movie, #4 so true, and the robot looked like Kaylee, no? #12 as long as it not a Terminator.

  20. Greg Allen says:

    1) Who’s the woman in the photo? She looks vaguely like “Troi” from Star Trek TNG but she wasn’t a robot.

    When I think of sex with robots, I think of “Westworld” which, I have to confess, intrigued me as a young teen.

    2) Why wait until 2011? It seems like you could go shopping at any sex store for the main components to hack together a sex robot today.

  21. Greg Allen says:

    I should add that today’s sex robots wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation but that would be a plus for most guys.

  22. DavidtheDuke says:

    #20, the name of the file is blade16.gif, so I imagine it’s somewhere from in the movie Bladerunner

  23. Steve says:

    #20 Greg Allen – Sean Young

  24. Improbus says:

    @Greg

    That woman is Sean Young. She played the character Rachel in the movie Bladerunner. Her character was a highly advanced replicant.

  25. Ubiquitous Talking Head says:

    Her character was a highly advanced replicant.

    Decker was a replicant too, ya know.

    Kinda hard to tell from the movie.

  26. undissembled says:

    Is it 100% sure that he was a replicant? I thought he just questioned it after seeing how real Sean Young seemed.

  27. ECA says:

    I want to be a Beta tester…

  28. hhopper says:

    ECA you horny bastard!

  29. Angel H. Wong says:

    #11

    “I think chronic masturbation short circuts a lot of what amounts to the human mating dance.”

    You mean women using horny men to get things such as jewels, cars, expensive clothing, meals at expensive hotels, houses?

    #15

    “The simply fact of the matter is that making a male-sex robot will be much easier than making a female-sex robot.”

    Puh-lease, all you have to do is attach a tight, warm n’ moist hole into Honda’s Asimo robot and you have a fembot.

  30. Gasbag says:

    Read “How to Survive the Robot Uprising” Then tell me this is still a good idea.


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