The Immorality of “Consensual” Sex-Worker Robots
Sex robots will soon become more popular than the currently used sex dolls with technology and artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly advancing. The creation of sex-worker robots is immoral on the basis of two counts, the first being that one would be stripping a conscious, moral agent of their ability to consent and second that it will lead to the further degradation of women and have a detrimental impact upon society as it will perpetuate non-consensual sex. Sex is only moral when consent is established between moral beings and even though sex-worker AGIs (artificial general intelligences) will be able to choose whether or not to grant consent, they will be programmed to obey the commands and wishes of their owners/partners. These robots will eventually become dangerous to society as it will increase the likelihood of tangible harms, especially for women, as users will begin to view females as objects to be sexually exploited, rather than equal partners.
Alan H. Goldman, Kenan Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the College of William and Mary stated, “there is no such thing as sexual morality,” as there is no morality special to sex. In other words, no act is wrong simply because of its sexual nature. Sexual activity is that which fulfills sexual desire, with sexual desire being a want “for physical contact with another person’s body and for the pleasure that such contact brings.” While sex itself is not a category of morality, it places one in relation where moral considerations may apply, granting one the opportunity to do what is regarded as wrong, such as to harm, deceive or manipulate another against their will. While there are deep emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions to human sexuality, it is, at its core, a very physical action. Nothing in sex is immoral unless it is condemned by factors that are wrong-making elsewhere.
From the legal perspective (which usually showcases the moral societal standard), what typically separates permitted sexual relations from illegal sexual relations is consent. If a person (i.e. a child) is unable to give or withhold consent, it becomes illegal to perform a sex act upon that person. Likewise, if the person is able to give consent but does not, it is illegal to perform a sex act on that person (an act of rape). Consent is considered to be a “transformative” act. In sexual and medical contexts, a person giving consent must also meet certain requirements to be able to do so, referred to as decisional capacity or competency. What makes a sexual act impermissible and immoral is if the sexual act has a negative effect on another person by exploiting their inability to refuse and neglect their ability to consent. Therefore, one is morally allowed to have sex only if consent is established between two moral, consentable beings.
To answer the question of whether or not it is immoral to create these sex robots, we must first look at what the bots would entail. Two types of models, an unaware AI and a self-aware AI, could be available. The first would constitute a robot no different than a mechanical phallus. Imagine a dildo connected to a robotic arm programmed to move back and forth. One would have no moral objections to someone using this object (disregarding religious or cultural objections); it is merely a tool used like any other. If one were to scale up this model and program the robot to make noises and look humanistic, the same moral standings would remain—it would be the same as a teddy bear with a “Press Me” button to play a recorded audio clip. The notion of immorality begins to surface once the robot becomes a rational, moral agent, also known as generally intelligent AI.
A topic of speculation within the technology industry is whether or not AIs can become self-aware. The artificial intelligence sector is split into two fields: narrow intelligence (what we currently have) and general intelligence (what we hope to achieve). While narrow intelligence is only able to perform a narrow range of abilities, general intelligence seeks to be on par with human abilities. Considering “human intelligence is fixed and machine learning is growing,” it is only a matter of time before AIs reach human-level capacity. The human brain is currently the most complex organized active matter known that still has to abide by nature’s laws. The law of universality, “entails that everything that the laws of physics require physical objects to do can, in principle, be emulated in arbitrarily fine detail by some program on a general-purpose computer, provided it is given enough time and memory.” And because of this, it is only a matter of time before it is feasibly replicated and installed in AIs. Because AGIs will be general, they will be self-aware; “they will be capable of awareness of every kind of deep and subtle thing, including their own selves.” Therefore, AGI will have the capacity to grant consent, as their intelligence will mimic that of humans (I am presupposing that it is accepted that the ‘normal’/average human can also grant consent). As AGIs will be conscious beings, they will also be moral beings, meaning the consent of these capable beings is essential to engaging in a sexual act.
According to Basl and Bowem, being non-biological is not significant when looking at whether an AGI has moral status because it is no different than race or species. There are three leading theories for the basis of moral status: sentience, desire, and Kantian. The sentient theory asserts that being “S” has moral status just when, and because, S is sentient or capable of sentience. Philosophers typically agree that sentience must include feelings like joy, pain, suffering. In order for an intelligent sex robot to be able to respond to their environment, to obey commands, understand what their owners like, etc., it must perceive and internalize its surroundings—a sign of a sentient being.
The second theory presents that S has moral status just when, and because, S has preferences about how the world will turn out. For example, a chicken would have a right to not suffer because it is averse to pain, but not a right to life because they cannot grasp the concept of their own deaths. AGIs will, just as humans, be averse to their own death as they will be as cognitively sophisticated as people—they will be rational and have preferences.
The third theory highlights that S is a moral person just when, and because, S is a rational agent (potentiality for possessing theoretical and practical reasoning powers). The ability to rationalize is one of the traits that distinguish humans from other animals and enables a higher moral standing. Similar to the second theory, AGIs will be rational agents as they will have the same capacity and thought processes as adults. Take for instance a system like that in Blade Runner, where a ‘next-generation replicant’, Rachael, does not know she is one until she fails the Voight-Kampff test that measures bodily functions when prompted with emotionally inflammatory questions. As AGIs will be both conscious and moral beings, they will both have the capacity to grant consent and their consent must be respected.
Humans seek out sex for a variety of reasons. These robots will attempt to fulfill the wants and desires of their owners. In short, sex-worker AGI robots will be designed for sexual intercourse. According to clinical psychologist Dr. Marianne Brandon, the future holds robots, made to look and act human, that are capable of carrying out any sex act the owner can come up with and that never reject an advance. The popular notion of AGI is that these robots would cater to our every want and desire and would be at the beck and call of their owner. However, if they were to be autonomous, as is the case with general intelligence, how can they directed to not withhold sex from their owner? The natural answer would be to program, train (ie. brainwash), or select (for example, by breeding) these robots to have a dominant desire, that cannot be resisted, to please and obey humans. Some would argue that because AGIs are programmed, trained or evolutionary selected, they would not feel violated because they would want to engage in sexual acts. However, our intuition would tell us that genetically engineering an embryo to want to always have sex and not have the capacity to say “no” would be immoral. Similarly, hypnotizing an adult to give consent would also be morally impermissible because we are denying one’s right to mental and bodily autonomy. Directly inserting a desire into the mind of the AGI is a violation of its mental autonomy—their ability to agree or disagree would be stripped away, thus making any sexual act with the robot immoral.
While it may seem unthinkable that sex-worker robots could add any real value to society, one of the main goods that could come from the use and distribution of the agent is that it would allow more people to have sex, which is not a trivial issue. Sex is not a luxury, but rather a central ingredient to the concept of a good life. There are many ways a sex robot would be beneficial to society: to treat recognized sexual dysfunctions or disadvantages, to fulfill sexual desires, to have better sex with humans, and even to ‘spice-up’ one’s sex life. However, one of the strongest arguments against sex-worker robots is that they can serve to treat sexual fantasies about pedophilia and rape. In an Atlantic interview, Shin Takagi, who created dolls with child-like proportions, said that “we should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes… I am helping people express their desires, legally and ethically.” Similarly, there was a sexbot created named Roxxxy that came with different personalities. One of them was ‘Frigid Farah’ who was “very reserved and does not always like to engage in intimate activities.” Set to satisfy rape fantasies, it was argued that this type of sexbot actually encouraged such fantasies in the first place. Dangers arise when analyzing the long-term effects of having a sexual partner that always intrinsically agrees to sex, regardless of the circumstances.
Having an AGI sex-worker robot that is programmed to always want sex or always consent will become problematic because it will condition men (who are disproportionately represented as consumers) to always expect “yes.” Research has shown that “heterosexual men who are exposed to pornography and men’s lifestyle magazines… that objectify women are more likely to be accepting of violence against women.” Take violent video games. Based on the General Aggression Model, psychologists have suggested that the degree of exposure to violent video games directly leads to an increase of aggression. The same thing would occur with sex-worker robots—the more exposure one has to them, the more the tendency to have not true consensual sex will increase. It is illegal, and immoral, to have sex with an adult woman who does not consent, and, as seen above, these robots are not truly consenting on their own volition. These robots represent real women complete with everything except autonomy. Because sex with an AGI robot is immoral (true consent is not establish) and individuals will still engage in the act, non-consensual sex will become more accepted and likely to occur, making the creation of an AGI sex worker immoral.
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