Looks like technology is triggering an orgasmic growth for the $30 billion sex-tech or human-machine intimacy industry. Leading the charge are sexbots or wire-attached, silicon-based artificial human beings, which are designed to be ideal companions in and out of bed. A range of offerings are in the market already and it will only get better.
Harmony by RealDoll is among the most evolved sexbot today. It can blink, move its head, have conversations and comes with self-learning software that remembers earlier encounters and conversations to offer better companionships. AI-powered sexbots like Harmony are customisable and offer a choice of 10 personality types — from sexy to funny to angry. In future, expect them to become more evolved, sophisticated and human-like.
In fact, Saudi Arabia even gave citizenship to a robot called Sophia in 2017 — she became the world’s first robot citizen.
Internet of Bodies (IoB) — basically Internet of Things (IoT) implanted in the human body — is the new buzzword in this industry. In a world where virtual tools like telepresence are bridging physical distances, remote intimacy technologies or teledildonics are coming to the rescue of partners separated by distance. Experts are exploring immersive sex content and virtual reality pornography.
New technologies also promise to disrupt the world’s oldest profession — prostitution. Brothels in several parts of the world, including the UK and Canada, are already offering customers sex dolls.
Digisexuals — people who prefer cyber love and cyber sex lives and not real ones — might become an important classification. Expect a whole new line of products, services and middlemen such as sexbot counsellors to emerge.
While technology will open a new world of possibilities in man-machine relationships, this path is strewn with many concerns. How will human nature change when humans nurture emotional ties with e-individuals? What kind of behaviour and aggression will it build when humans get used to made-to-order, ever-consenting sex robots? There are fears of misogynistic objectification, too.
Technology serves best when it helps to do things that humans aren’t capable of. But what will happen when it starts replacing humans even in the most intimate of relationships?
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