Guys and Dolls
This chapter explores the creators and potential consumers of sex robots. With Realbotix as our case study, we take a closer look at the language and sentiments of those developing the technology and those who are testing, consuming, or showing an interes
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Guys and Dolls Sex Robot Creators and Consumers Kate Devlin und Chloé Locatelli
The one message about love dolls I would love to get across to the general public is that they are not just for sex! (Dean) Abstract
This chapter explores the creators and potential consumers of sex robots. With Realbotix as our case study, we take a closer look at the language and sentiments of those developing the technology and those who are testing, consuming, or showing an interest in it. We do this by means of website and chat forum analysis, and via interviews with those involved. From this, we can see the motivation for developing a sexual companion robot places the emphasis firmly on the companionship aspect, and that those involved in creating and consuming the products share an ideology of intimacy and affection, with sexual gratification only playing a minor role.
5.1 Introduction and Background At the time of writing, it is still not possible to buy a fully developed sex robot. Currently, there are a handful of workshops around the world working on prototype versions. Those with prototypes that are more fully realised include the Chinese-based DS Doll K. Devlin (*) · C. Locatelli King’s College, London, UK E-Mail: [email protected] C. Locatelli E-Mail: [email protected] © Der/die Herausgeber bzw. der/die Autor(en), exklusiv lizenziert durch Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature 2020 O. Bendel (Hrsg.), Maschinenliebe, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29864-7_5
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(also known as Doll Sweet) and EXDoll, both working together on their robotics projects (https://dsdollrobotics.com/about/), and the US-based Realbotix, creators of the Harmony robot (https://realbotix.com). Realbotix already sells an artificially intelligent chatbot as a virtual girlfriend app. While the media has often reported on Synthea Amatus’ Samantha robot, created by Sergi Santos, Santos has now halted production (Devlin 2018). Likewise, the much-discussed Roxxxy by TrueCompanion has made few appearances beyond a rudimentary model at a trade show in 2010 and is considered by many researchers to be a case of hype over substance. DS Dolls, EXDoll Robotics and Realbotix are companies that have diversified into robotics from their original product of love dolls: life-sized and life-like models made from silicone or thermoplastic elastomers (TPE), predominantly in the form of women, for sexual use. These dolls form the basis for the robotic version, which in both cases so far is a robotic head designed to fit the body of a doll. Building on early work by Asaro (2001) and Levy (2007), the publications of the past few years on the topic of sexual companion robots have covered many aspects: ethical and legal (Danaher and McArthur 2017), technical and social (Devlin 2018), and cultural portrayal (Wosk 2015; Devlin and Belton 2020). Su et al. (2019) carried out qualitative analyses of publicly viewable forum posts by RealDoll owners to understand user motivation. Their findings confirmed
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