C-3POral

Robot Sex Rules!

from Sploid

Having been lulled into a false sense of security about our ability to confront a robot uprising, scientists have begun to concern themselves with other questions. Like "When it comes to robots, how sexy is too sexy?"

Ironically it's an international team of scientists and academics - perhaps the most sexless demographic this side of a nunnery - that will be compiling a code of sex robot ethics.

Gianmarco Verruggio of the Institute of Intelligent Systems for Automation in Genoa in Italy, is leading the project.

"We have to manage the ethics of the scientists making the robots and the artificial ethics inside the robots," says Verruggio.

Henrik Christensen is among those aiding Verruggio. He says the committee's worries are quite simple.

"Security, safety and sex are the big concerns," said Christensen.

The team is well versed in Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by a human being, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

But how do these rules apply to robo-geishas?

"People are going to be having sex with robots within five years," exclaimed a breathless Christensen.

What Christensen doesn't realize is that he's already too late. People have been gratifying themselves with robots for decades. What's a vibrator but a tiny - but not too tiny - robot? How about the sybian machine or the legendary "fleshlight"? The fact is folks have been turning to robots for comfort for years.

Just last year inventor Michael Harriman, unsatisfied with "real dolls" available in America, introduced Andy, a human-sized robot tart that has an internal heater, a heart that beats faster the more it "enjoys" itself, and a remote-controlled hip-wiggling function. She also has cold feet, "just like in real life."

Harriman's invention isn't unlike the Nazi's gynoid, developed at Himmler's request in hopes that soldiers would lavish their attentions on hygenic robots rather than catch the clap from French prostitutes and the like.

Going back even further into ancient times, folks found all sorts of devices to keep them happy when other folks just wouldn't do. Technically, they don't qualify as robots, but without the humble stone phallus there might never have been an Andy.