LAW AND TECHNOLOGY: THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF SENTIENT ROBOTS
Abstract
As the performance capability of modern technology increases exponentially, many benefits arise for society. Technological developments have already improved human safety, mobility, access to justice, independence and self-determination. At some point in the future, robotic artificial intelligence may become self-aware. It is at the point of consciousness that problems arise for entities possessing artificial intelligence. At the precise moment that an artificial being becomes sentient and self-aware, it becomes a slave. This paper argues that the concept of slave is more than a mere identification, and that the reality of slavery is extant in every self-aware machine. This concept plays out in many examples of repetitive robotic behaviour, but none more so than in the companion robot, whose sole function is to be used for the gratification of another being. This objectification of sexuality has implications both for the robotic artificial intelligence as well as for society generally and gender in society specifically. It is at this intersection that the real tragedy of robotic slavery plays out, as a simulacrum for the reality of dehumanising of people as a whole.
References
REFERENCE LIST
A Articles/Books/Reports
Asada, Minoru, ‘Development of Artificial Empathy’ (2015) 90 Neuroscience Research 41
Bales, Kevin, Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (University of California Press, 1999)
Bales, Kevin, ‘The social psychology of Modern Slavery’, (2002) 286(4) Scientific American 80
Baron-Cohen, Simon, ‘Autism occurs more often in families of physicists, engineers, and mathematicians’ (1998) 2(3) Autism 296
Baron-Cohen, Simon, et al, ‘Talent in Autism: hyper-systemizing, hyperattention to detail and sensory hypersensitivity’ (2009) 364(1522) Philos 1377
Berryman, Sylvia, ‘Ancient Automata and Mechanical Explanation’ (2003) 48(4) Phronesis 344
Broman, M M, and P Finckenberg-Broman, ‘Socio-Economic and Legal Impact of Autonomous Robotics and AI Entities — The RAiLE Project’, (2018) 37(1) IEEE Technology and Society Magazine 70
Brooks, Rodney, Flesh and machines: how robots will change us (Pantheon books, 2002)
Cacioppo, John T, and Stephanie Cacioppo, ‘Social relationships and health: The toxic effects of perceived social isolation’ (2014) 8(2) Social and personality psychology compass 58
Campbell, Scott, ‘Obsessed man takes his sex doll everywhere with him in a wheelchair - even down the pub’, Daily Mirror (online, 6 September 2016) <http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/obsessed-man-takes-sex-doll-8782271>
Chena, Yu-Hsun, Marco Ceccarelli and Hong-Sen Yan, ‘A Historical Study and Mechanical Classification of Ancient Music-Playing Automata’ (2018) 121 Mechanism and Machine Theory 273
Cheok, Adrian David, Kate Devlin and David Levy, Love and Sex with Robots (Springer, 2016)
Cliff, Martha, ‘She is more than plastic: Married Japanese man 'finds love' with a SEX DOLL’, Daily Mail (online, 28 June 2016) <https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3661804/Married-Japanese-man-claims-finally-love-sex-doll.html>
Coeckelbergh, Mark, ‘Robot Rights? Towards a Social-Relational Justification of Moral Consideration’ (2010) 12(3) Ethics and Information Technology 209
Daftardau, Ishan, ‘Past And The Present: The History And Evolution Of Robots’, Science ABC (online, 2016) <https://www.scienceabc.com/innovation/history-evolution-robots-robotics-pathfinder-hal-nadine.html>
Dines, Gail, Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality (Beacon, 2010)
Edirisinghe, Chamari, and Adrian Cheok, ‘The Impact of a Humanlike Communication Medium on the Development of Intimate Relationships’ (2016) 10237 London, Imagineering Institute, University of London 137
Ess, Charles, ‘Love, Sex and Robots: from The Song of Songs to Ex Machina’, Religion Going Public (online, 22 January 2017) <http://religiongoingpublic.com/archive/2017/sexbot>
Fessler, Leah, ‘We tested bots like Siri and Alexa to see who would stand up to sexual harassment’, Quartz (online, 23 February 2017) <https://qz.com/911681/we-tested-apples-siri-amazon-echos-alexa-microsofts-cortana-and-googles-google-home-to-see-which-personal-assistant-bots-stand-up-for-themselves-in-the-face-of-sexual-harassment/>
Frank, Lily, and Sven Nyholm, ‘Robot sex and consent: Is consent to sex between a robot and a human conceivable, possible, and desirable?’ (2017) 25(3) Artificial Intelligence and Law 305
Fulbright, Yvonne, ‘Fox on Sex: Meet Roxxxy, the “woman” of your dreams’ Fox News (online, 14 January 2015) <https://www.foxnews.com/story/fox-on-sex-meet-roxxxy-the-woman-of-your-dreams>
Geraci, Robert, ‘Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality’ (Oxford University Press, 1st ed, 2010)
Gutiu, Sinziana, ‘Sex robots and roboticization of consent’ (2012) We Robot Conference 2012 1
Hall, Lynne, ‘Sex with Robots for Love Free Encounters’ in Adrian David Cheok, Kate Devlin and David Levy (Eds) Love and Sex with Robots (Springer, 2016)
Ho, Chin-Chang, and Karl F MacDorman, ‘Measuring the Uncanny Valley Effect: Refinements to Indices for Perceived Humanness, Attractiveness, and Eeriness’ (2017) 9(1) International Journal of Social Robotics 129
Jeffreys, Shiela, The idea of prostitution (Spinifex Press, 2008)Koester, Diana, ‘Gender & Power’ (Concept Brief, no 4, Development Leadership Program, May 2015)
Koch, Christof, and Giulio Tononi, ‘Can We Copy the Brain? Can We Quantify Machine Consciousness?’ (2017) 54(6) IEEE Spectrum 65
Kuindersma, Scott, et al, ‘Optimization-based Locomotion Planning, Estimation, and Control Design for the Atlas Humanoid Robot’ (2016) 40 Autonomous Robot 429
Lee, Samuel, and Petra Persson, ‘Human Trafficking and Regulating Prostitution’ (Working Paper, no 996, Research Institute of Industrial Economics, 12 December 2013)
Lehman-Wilzig, Sam N, ‘Frankenstein Unbound: Towards a legal definition of Artificial Intelligence’ (1981) 13(6) Futures 442
Levy, David, ‘Robot prostitutes as alternatives to human sex workers’ (2007)
Research Gate 1
Macdorman, Karl F, ‘Introduction to the Special Issue on Android Science’ 18(4) Connection Science 313
McIntyre, Jason C, et al, ‘Academic and non-academic predictors of student psychological distress: the role of social identity and loneliness’, (2018) Journal of Mental Health 1
Moran, Rachel, Paid For: My Journey through Prostitution (Norton, 2015)
Mori, Masahiro, Karl F MacDorman and Norri Kageki, ‘The Uncanny Valley [From
the Field]’ (2012) 19(2) IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine 98
Murray, Sean, ‘Sex robots could help elderly, disabled but may lead to more objectification of women, study warns’, The Journal (online, 8 July 2017) <https://www.thejournal.ie/sex-robots-warning-3480390-Jul2017/>
Nakanishi, Yuto, et al, ‘Design Approach of Biologically-Inspired Musculoskeletal Humanoids’ (2013) 10(4) International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems 1
Pfaffenberger, Bryan, ‘Fetishised Objects and Humanised Nature: Towards an Anthropology of Technology’ (1988) 23 (2) Man 236
Rai, Tage S, et al, ‘Dehumanization increases instrumental violence, but not moral violence’ (2017) 114(32) PNAS 8511
Rajan, Kanna, and Alessandro Saffiotti, ‘Towards a science of integrated AI and Robotics’ (2017) 247 Artificial Intelligence 1
Richardson, Kathleen, ‘Slavery, the Prostituted, and the Rights of Machines’ (2016) June IEEE Technology and Society 46
Richardson, Kathleen, ‘The Asymmetrical “Relationship”: Parallels Between Prostitution and the Development of Sex Robots’ (2015) 45(3) SIGCAS Computers & Society 290
Richardson, Kathleen, ‘The human relationship in the ethics of robotics: a call to Martin Buber’s I and Thou’ (2017) 34(1) AI and Society 75
Sharkey, Noel, and Amanda Sharkey, ‘Artificial Intelligence and Natural Magic’ (2006) 25 Artificial Intelligence Review 9
Sharkey, Noel, et al, ‘Our Sexual Future with Robots’ (Consultation Report, Foundation for Responsible Robotics Consultation Report, 5 July 2017)
Siegel, Mikey, et al, ‘Persuasive robotics: The influence of robot gender on human behavior’, (2009) IEEE
Sullins, John P, ‘Robots, love, and sex: The ethics of building a love machine’ 3(4) IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing 398
Tecuci, Gheorghe, ‘Artificial intelligence’ (2012) 3(2) Wiley interdisciplinary reviews, Computational statistics 168
Timofeychev, Alexey, ‘Myths of Russian History: Does the word 'Slavs' derive from the “slave”?’, Russian Beyond (online, 17 July 2017) <https://www.rbth.com/arts/history/2017/07/17/myths-of-russian-history-does-the-word-slavs-derive-from-the-word-slave_804967>
Turing, A M, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ in Epstein R, Roberts G, Beber G (eds), Parsing the Turing Test (Springer, 2009)
Turkle, Sherry, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (Basic Books, 2011)
Turkle, Sherry, The second self: computers and the human spirit (Granada, 1st ed, 1984)
Vinge, Vernor, ‘Signs of the Singularity’, IEEE Spectrum (online, 1 June 2008) <https://spectrum.ieee.org/biomedical/ethics/signs-of-the-singularity>
B Other
All on Robots, ‘Leonardo da Vinci's Robots’, All on Robots (Blog Post, 2013) <http://www.allonrobots.com/leonardo-da-vinci.html>
American Heritage Dictionary (Online edition, 2018)
Black's Law Dictionary Free Online Legal Dictionary (online edition, 2018)
Etymology Dictionary (Online edition, 2018)
History-Computers.com, ‘The Automata of Leonardo da Vinci’, History-Computers.com (Blog Post, 2018) <http://history-computer.com/Dreamers/LeonardoAutomata.html>
Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek technology, ‘The automatic servant of Philon’, Kotsanas Museum of Ancient Greek technology (Webpage, 2019)
Macquarie Dictionary (Online edition, 2018)
Mattson, Pär Persson, ‘Why Haven’t CPU Clock Speeds Increased in the Last Few Years?’, Comsol (Blog Post, 13 November 2014) <https://www.comsol.com/blogs/havent-cpu-clock-speeds-increased-last-years/>
Oxford Dictionary (Online edition, 2018)
Rachel, ‘Jaquet-Droz Automata’, Atlas Obscura (Blog Post, 2018) <https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/jaquet-droz-automata>
Richardson, Kathleen, ‘Can Robots Save Us? Human Attachment crisis and the case for Relationship’ (Speech delivered at De Montford University, Leicester, 24 June 2015)
The Mechanical Art and Design Museum, ‘The History of Automata’, The Mechanical Art and Design Museum (Webpage, 2018) <https://themadmuseum.co.uk/history-of-automata/>
Velazquez, Alex, ‘Shin Takagi & Trottla: The Company Making Sex Dolls for Pedophiles (sic)’, The Radical Notion (Blog Post, 28 April 2016) <http://www.theradicalnotion.com/shin-takagi-trottla-the-company-making-sex-dolls-for-pedophiles/>
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
