The Week In Sex Tech – Rob Brooks Op-Ed On Virtual Reality And Artificial Initimacy, What’s Wrong About Sexbots, New Deepfake Porn Laws
Excellent Article By Author Rob Brooks On AI And Sex Robots, VR Porn
Interesting op-ed from Rob Brooks appeared a few days ago in the LA Times, the author of ‘Artificial Intimacy‘ which was published earlier this year. There are two claims he makes that I agree 100% with. Firstly, that sex robots are over hyped and virtual reality girlfriends will be much more popular. Secondly, that ‘artificial intimacy’ – that is the second wave of sex technologies that are feeding digisexuality, such as sex robots and virtual reality porn – will be ground zero for the next incarnation of the culture wars. He also mentions something that I have in the past here too. That although the religious right and feminists have already stoked moral panics over sex robots, virtual reality has been somewhat under their rader. He notes correctly that this wont last for much longer. And as you can see in another sex tech story I’ve posted today, they certainly have ‘deepfake porn’ in their sights.
Virtual reality — the computer-generated simulation of three-dimensional images — may offer a more versatile future, in which digital lovers can be seen via headsets, heard through speakers, and touched via haptic gloves and clothing. Haptics is the use of technology to create an experience of touch, allowing us to physically “feel” what is happening in the virtual world.
In this scenario, a user could drop into a 3-D pornland alongside AI-generated characters customized to suit the user’s preference or mood. Both the user and the characters’ avatars could shrug off real-world anatomic constraints, growing extra arms, or sporting improbable genital configurations. When this future of infinite variety arrives, many users may never want to leave the VR cave.
This sexy VR future grows nearer with every advance in computer power. With faster processors, better haptics, and teledildonic (look it up yourself!) sex toys that can be controlled remotely, two or more people will have the chance to participate in the same VR-enhanced, physically satisfying sex scene, while each remains in the comfort and safety of their own home.
For all their titillating possibility, it seems inevitable that the technologies of artificial intimacy will become ground zero for the next culture war. The pill, abortion and internet porn, even as they freed sex from its reproductive shackles, generated considerable ideological friction along the way. We can expect something similar from the new technologies of artificial intimacy.
Loud voices from the religious right and the anti-porn left are already being raised against sex robots. They haven’t yet awakened to the more extensive possibilities when virtual reality and AI go to town on users’ erotic desires. But when they do, I have little doubt they’ll be outraged.
What’s more, there may be a measure of disapproval on the part of the public more generally — the predictable “uncanny valley” queasiness heightened by our typical censoriousness about sex. And concerns about whether treating objects like humans might lead to treating some humans like objects.
Read the entire article : https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-29/artificial-intimacy-sex-technology
FreeThink.com – What’s So Wrong About Sexbots?
Another excellent article against the sex tech puritans appeared last week. Alex Pearlman asked ‘What’s so wrong about sexbots‘, and argues that sex robots can teach us how to co-exist with AI.
The widespread fears about the dolls increasing demand for sex trafficking and violence against women seem to be particularly unfounded.
McMullen doesn’t buy the argument that the dolls encourage violence. They’re too expensive. “I don’t see customers paying $10,000 to beat on their robots.”
The robots are actually designed to discourage violence by not responding at all when they are abused or mishandled—they appreciate and respond positively to language around consent and permission, they have sensors around their neck and hands, and they communicate how they’d like to be touched.
“They won’t react to violence,” says McMullen. He believes it’s a waste of resources to allocate development time to have the robots react to mean things. “There’s no reason to do that, because then you’re allowing for it.”
UK Moves Closer To Ban Deepfake Porn And ‘Nudifying’ Technology
There have been more demands from UK parliamentarians to bring in laws against Deepfake Porn. Even the private production of any such images, including any using ‘nudeifying’ technology, looks set to be made illegal under a forthcoming controversial ‘Online Harms’ Internet safety bill. Britain already has some of the strictest porn laws of any ostensibly ‘secular’ society, including being one of the first to introduce ‘revenge porn’ laws, which were introduced after lobbying by the same Conservative MP calling for deepfake porn to be banned – Maria Miller. Miller also has demanded that ‘cyber flashing’ be made a sex crime.
An MP has called for non-consensual deepfake porn and nudification images to be made sex crimes, warning they are rapidly on the rise.
Maria Miller wants the government to ban the making and sharing of image-based “sexual abuse” under the online safety bill.
She will bring an adjournment debate to the Commons on Thursday in which she will outline the “devastating” impact such images have on the victims.
Deepfakes are when ordinary photos of women are taken without their consent and placed onto pornographic images or videos using AI or software. They can be superimposed onto violent or illegal extreme material such as rape.
Meanwhile, nudification software takes everyday images of women and creates a new image which makes it appear as if they are naked.
The Tory MP said the creation of such images without consent was a “highly sexualised act” and they were difficult to remove from the internet.
Calling for it to be a sex crime, she added: “Deep fake and nudification software are yet more ways women can suffer online sexual abuse.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ban-rape-deepfake-nudifying-tech_uk_61a79734e4b0f398af1aeeb1
UK Moves Ahead With Controversial Age Verification Plans For Porn
The British crackdown on porn does not end with deepfake porn – British also face having to undergo facial identification checks in order to visit adult websites. These plans may be incorporated into the same ‘Online Harms’ bill that may make deepfake porn illegal (see above).
The forthcoming U.K. “online harms bill” has been put on hold until 2022 because Prime Minister Johnson told the House of Commons liaison committee that he “wanted to see it strengthened.”
The new bill is also said to include facial identification requirements and massive collection of biometric data and “age assurance” measures.
According to The Times’ thoroughly positive coverage of this privacy-busting proposal, sites will be required to “use artificial intelligence to identify children by the way they they behave online or interact with a device.”
Back in June, de Souza blamed what she called an “epidemic of sexual harassment” in public and private schools on online porn.
Instead of addressing the centuries-old British culture of sexualized hazing in schools, or parental responsibilities, or the need for a program of non-shame-based sex education, de Souza claimed that “one area [she is] clear on is that online hardcore pornography warps boys’ expectations of normal relationships and normalizes behaviors that girls are then expected to accept, and it’s just too easy for children to access.”