Hot Bots

While sex robots are becoming popular, there is also a dark side to the fantasy

- Sarah Knapton

There are currently four manufacturers making life-like robotic dolls world wide, but experts predict that, in coming decades, they could become widespread, used not just as a fetish, but for sexual therapy and as companions for lonely, disabled or older people.

Noel Sharkey, emeritus professor of robotics and artificial intelligence at the University of Sheffield, and cofounder of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics, said it was time for the government and the public to decide whether to regulate pleasure bots. FRR operates from the Hague Institute for Global Justice at the Hague and runs consultations on all areas of robotics. It has 200 members, including some of the world’s eminent robotics academics. “I can tell you that robots are certainly coming,” Sharkey said at the launch of the new consultation report in central London. “The concern is that this is going on and nobody is talking about it. People snigger about them, but we are going to see them a lot more. They are being proposed for the elderly in care homes, which I think is controversial. If you have severe Alzheimer’s, you can’t really tell the difference. We need to think about as a society what we want to do about it.”