We're living in this remarkable age where artificially intelligent sexbots are not too far away. Of course, there's always the danger they'll rip off your penis (or bite off your clitoris, fair's fair), steal your kids and take over the world, but if there's a remote possiblity you can get jiggy with a good looking machine before that happens, why not hey?

The most recent movie I've seen on this theme was 'Companion', where a subservient android built for human companionship learns she is a companion, and thus programmed for love rather than falling in love of her own free will. Sympathy is on the side of the bot here, as her human 'owner' is a total prick, and it's her we root for as she tries to escape the authority that takes away her autonomy via a phone app. She is so human, so life like, and her lover is so cruel that questions must be asked about what actually definies humanity and it's ability to love.

In Ridley Scott's famous dystopian film 'Blade Runner', love is a kind of path to humanity. Rachael is a replicant who believe she is human, and the romance between her and Deckard asks whether love is uniquely hunan, or whether intimacy and personal connection might actually blur the line between human and machine. Replicants too search for meaning in their lives, and love, whether familial or romantic. Love appears to transcend programming, such as implanted memories, and it is feeling and emotion that matters over the idea of love or the belief that humans are the only ones capable of it.

Like the characters Blade Runner, most of us are isolated and lonely, searching for connection. If we cannot find it in our fellow man - or woman, or whatever - perhaps it is enough to find it in an AI sex partner. Perhaps it's not even about sex - but more about the partnership. Who are those happily partnered to judge those who might seek it in AI forms? And if AI replicates the human, perhaps it's not really a substitute, but simply another option - a swipe up, perhaps, rather than left or right.

Twenty odd years ago, I was lonely. I had almsot given up on finding someone who I could share my life with, and find happiness and contentment with. I feel blessed I found, by some dumb luck, the love of my life.

My NOT artificially intelligent sex companion.

Would I have been happy alone, if I hadn't found him? If no 'genuine' relationship presented itself, would an 'artificial' substitute have worked? If, granted, they were human 'enough' - warm skin, tender touch, a true replicant of the human connection I had so desired, as well as the sex desired back then, all messy fluids and hot skin?

These days, being alone doesn't sound so horrifying for me, and certainly sex isn't as important to me as a supportive, loving, loyal partner I can laugh and cry with. I'm not sure I'd order a replicant even if they were readily available on the free market for a decent price. I'd feel a little squeamish too, particularly around how much free will an AI toy boy might have. Is it love if you have just turned up the dial on 'love me'? Is it desire if I have programmed the kink I wanted? Would I just have been still lonely and searching for human connection?

Side Note

I was playing around with some images on Chat GPT for this blog post, before remembering that the community rules probably don't allow AI created images. However, it's worth breaking the rules a little - I hope - to note that every image I created came up with a female AI sexbot - a male default bias in tech design. It does say something about what the AI is reflected back at us - that men need sexual play things, a reinforcement of the inherent misogyny in our society. How would, therefore, ideas of woman as fuckable objects be perpetuated if AI sex bots were an actual thing? Shouldn't we be focussing on how to have genuine, authentic, real relationships with woman? Chat GPT, in it's attempt at parody, shone a black mirror at society by suggesting it's 'horny incels' and 'lonely billionaires' who are the types that would desire a bot that is coded to be a particular way, to pretend the man is 'special' and at the same time completely emotionally unavailable, because god forbid a love object with emotions confound a sexual relationship. Such hypersexualised, submissive woman would only reinforce the idea that woman are passive objects of desire. If consent is blurred in human-Ai relationships, surely this spills over to expecting obedience and compliance in real life relationships? And if someone abuses a sexbot, does it matter? What if the sexbot is designed to be childlike? Or modelled on a real person? And if idealised, hyperreal bodies become the norm, what happens to the flawed human bodies? Are they less than? How does this destablised sexual expectations? And who can afford a sex bot - are they just the domain of the rich, leaving the poor without, again? What about queer relationships? And if sexbots are sold as replacing difficult, messy human relationships, isn't that just bypassing the real work people need to do to have rewarding, impactful, meaningful human relationships - a kind of avoidance like drugs, alcohol or porn?

With Love,

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