Sex robots could soon be available for elderly and lonely, but ethical concerns raised
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The advancement of technology has certainly brought to life a myriad of possibilities. Now, it even includes sexual gratification for both the elderly and the lonely.
Pleasure bots, or sex robots, could soon be populating both nursing and personal homes, according to the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR).
These sexual-satisfaction-inducing inventions, as per the Telegraph, are already being tested and engineered by several robotic-doll manufacturers in the world.
But instead of catering solely to sexual fetishes, experts believe that such life-like robots would soon be made available for sexual therapy and could even aid lonely, disabled orolder people.
“I can tell you that robots are certainly coming,” Noel Sharke, co-founder of FRR, was quoted as saying in the report.
“The concern is that this is going on, nobody is talking about it. People snigger about them, but they are actually shipping quite a lot and we are going to see them a lot more,” he added.
Although the robots could prove to be therapeutic for some, Sharke also pointed out the possible ethical concerns such practice could have.
“They are being proposed for the elderly in care homes, which I think is controversial,” he said. “If you have severe Alzheimer’s you can’t really tell the difference.”
He added: “We need to think about as a society what we want to do about it.”
Currently, several sex dolls are already being publicly used in Japan, while manufacturers are now looking to incorporate artificial intelligence for robots to be able to communicate and respond to human emotions.
“It’s very sad because it’s going to be a one-way relationship,” Sharkey described the possible bond between human and machine.
“If people bond with robots it’s very worrying. You are loving an artefact that can’t love you back, and the best they can do is fake it,” he said. Khristian Ibarrola /ra
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