There could come a day where robot children are given to pedophiles to do whatever. I can’t imagine how that could possibly go wrong.
Rule 34 of the Internet states the following:
“If it exists, there is porn of it. No exceptions.”
As that’s the case, it’s almost a given that whatever technology is created by society, there will be some application that will tie sex into it. This notion also ties into robotics, as it’s been long theorized in all sorts of science fiction that robots would, in many cases, be used for sex in some way, shape or form.
With most natural progressions, there also comes an inevitable dark side.
According to experts at a recent robot ethics panel discussion in Berkeley, California, robots designed to look like children could someday be used to treat pedophiles. I’ll give you a moment to let that soak in.
Better now? OK.
There are therapists who believe they could use the kid-bots (which are, of course, anatomically correct) to help rehabilitate some sexual offenders. The thinking here is that if they’re raping robots, chances are, they won’t rape actual human children.
“Child-like robots could be used for pedophiles the way methadone is used to treat drug addicts,” Ron Arkin, Georgia Tech’s Mobile Robot Lab director said during the panel discussion according to Forbes. “There are no presumptions that this will assuredly yield positive results – I only believe it is worth investigating in a controlled way to possibly provide better protection to society from recidivism in sex offenders. If we can save some children, I think it’s a worthwhile project.”
Arkin goes on to say in the Forbes article that while he doesn’t approve of child sex bots for recreational use, he’d like to see them used for research purposes. So basically, instead of actually turning the child robots out for actual use, they’d only use them to study on pedophiles in-house, so to speak.
Now those of you who know me know my position on robots: they have no mortal souls, and if given the chance, they would enslave and experiment on us, so screw them. However, the idea of encouraging pedophilia through the use of what is essentially a surrogate doesn’t make me feel much better. If the idea is to prevent child rape altogether, I don’t see the benefit in kicking the can down the road by giving Johnny Kidrapist something to tide himself over until he gets his hands on the real thing.
Of course, we have quite a few years before sex robots of any type are available for public consumption. It probably goes without saying that by the time sex robots even become an issue, there will be some form of rights group who will fight to keep child robots out of the hands of pedophiles anyway, starting an entirely new debate that I’m not entirely sure any of us will want to be a part of.