Dr. Kathleen Richardson, a robot ethicist at De Montfort University in Leicester in the UK, has called for a preemptive ban on robots built to have sex with humans.
“Sex robots seem to be a growing focus in the robotics industry and the models that they draw on – how they will look, what roles they would play – are very disturbing indeed. We think that the creation of such robots will contribute to detrimental relationships between men and women, adults and children, men and men and women and women.”
Richardson is making several assumptions, apparently, including about whether smart robots who engage in sexual relationships with humans are reinforcing detrimental stereotypes of women as purely sexual objects. The pushback from some in the industry, including Douglas Hines of True Companion, a company that develops such appliances, is that these robots are “solution for people who are between relationships or someone who has lost a spouse” and that they are not trying to replace a real wife or a girlfriend.