Lucrezia Magazine | Erotica, Art and Sexuality

The heart robot is the latest breakthrough in the development of robots with emotions. Developed in the United Kingdom, the robot has sensors to detect movement, sound and touch. The respiring robot reacts to cuddles.

Created by the University of the West of England, its design was motivated to research the manner with which humans respond to machines with feelings. How far can this technology go, in terms of adding emotional applications to synthetic companion dolls such as the Real Doll? It will be interesting to see.

"Heart Robot has a beating heart, a breathing belly, and sensors that respond to movement, noise and touch. Cuddle him, and he seems to soak up the affection. His limbs become limp, his eyelids lower, his breathing relaxes, and his heartbeat slows down.

But if he is given a violent shake, or shouted at, he gets upset. He flinches, his hands clench, his breathing and heart rate speed up, and his eyes widen." (The Telegraph)

In his book, Love and Sex With Robots (2007, Harpercollins), artificial intelligence expert Robert Levy is of the view that relationships with androids and similar other artificially enhanced machines will be inevitable by 2050. His view is based on studying the historical relationships between humans and machines. Completely different from the Hollywood version of robotics, namely The Terminator franchise, new features (such as emotions) can affect the sex industry, making sex workers redundant as well as minimizing the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.

“Is it not a sad reflection of society that millions of people don’t have anyone to love or regular satisfactory sex?” Levy asks. “They might be shy, have psychosexual hang-ups or be physically deformed. For them, the choice is not sex with A or B; they don’t have sex at all, or they pay for it.

“With robots, they won’t have to pay any more. Robots will appear to love them, and that might be satisfactory enough. I think society would be better off if all those lonely people became happy because they found a sex partner.”

Robots offering emotional feedback, such as the recent example in the UK, and the potential this may have for realistic sex dolls can lead to one thing – the safest form of sex. It seems that sexual evolution is heading into the mechanical sector.

Karl Marx once said that machines were capitalist weapons to reduce the revolt of specialized labor and Napoleon Bonaparte said that women were machines for producing children, but these brief quotes or views are limited in explaining human motivation or frailty behind the development of artificial intelligence as a substitute for relationships in our contemporary era. Author, Michael Crichton, is closer in his summation of the information age that of humans living each day in virtual environments, defined by their ideas.

Sources: Now Magazine, The Telegraph