The city government in Osaka prohibited touts for other soliciting people. It is prohibited by law to lure people towards prostitutes or other illicit sexual activity. So what do the owners of the sex clubs do? Create Robot Touts of course!

I should have figured that it would not be long before someone would come up with this idea. Here is the complete story and the original link.

You work late. Like, every night. You probably screwed up your last steady relationship, and, well, maybe there’s no one to curl up next to in bed when you stumble in the door at night. Drew Burrows knows the feeling. “I’m in this grad program right now, and it’s totally consuming,” he said. “I come home every night to an empty bed.” So Burrows, 28, engineered (literally) a solution, which he unveiled to the public last night at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program Spring Show at Tisch School of the Arts.

It’s simple to behold — a single mattress, tucked into a dark, curtained back room of the showcase space. On it: a lithe brunette. She’s perfectly quiet, but once you sit or lie down, she responds to your every move. Lie on your back, she snuggles up right next to you in a log position. Curl up in the fetal position, she spoons. The only hitch: She’s 2-D. “Yeah, you can’t feel the girl. That’s the thing,” Burrows explained as he demonstrated his invention, an “infrared sensitive” light projection (meaning it reacts, and the projected woman moves, based on an infrared sensor) called INBED. “Still, it’s so nice if you’re tired and worn out to have someone to curl up with.”

As for satisfying those not-so-innocent late-night desires, this lady adheres to her role as steady girlfriend. Give her kiss on the check and she rolls over and buries her face in the pillow. And yes, she stays fully clothed at all times. Nonetheless, Burrows suggests his new alternative to a full-body pillow or (ugh) blow-up doll could provide late-night comfort for traders, lawyers, or any other single guy in Manhattan who simply works too hard to keep a girlfriend. Speaking of, how long has Burrows been single?

“Long enough to come up with this idea,” he sighed. —Christine Lagorio

See more at http://toast.nonfiction.org/0044/

The Wired Magazine has a run down of the top 10 science fiction love stories. They range from the newly released Wall-E to the Classic Blade Runner to Japanese Surrealist movie I.K.U Conspicuously missing was Steven Spielberg’s Artificial Intelligence. While I was not surprised to see the inclusion of somewhat complicated relationship between Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six, I just that they should have waited a bit for this since the relationship between the too is bound to get even more complicated as Six seem to have something going on with Colonel Tigh. Anyway check out the compete article at Wired. By the way the first sentence is really catchy.

When cute trash compactor Wall-E first lays eyes on Eve, a flying, laser-gun-equipped fembot, it’s binary love at first pixel.

Thanks to Hulleye Comes By for the pointer.

You’ve heard of distance learning. Now it looks like distance sex is on the way. Dominic Choy of Cammeray, New South Wales, wants to replace real sex with an online robotic experience. He proposes a lifelike flexible mannequin covered with imitation skin (WO 0059581). Servo motors move its limbs and other body parts in response to control signals both from the Internet and from touch and sound sensors on its body. Two people with matching mannequins connect over the Internet, wearing virtual-reality visors so they can see and hear each other. Couples can get together from opposite ends of the Earth—or they could program the system so that one participant resembles their partner’s favourite celebrity.

THURSDAY 21 JUNE
TRACK 6 – Information and Computing Ethics [W2]
17.45-19.15     Information and Computing Ethics – Chair: Alison Adam

Gianmarco Veruggio
Roboethics: an interdisciplinary approach to the social implication of Robotics

TRACK 11 – Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics [W3]
15.00-16.00     Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics – Chair: Gianmarco Veruggio

15.00     Ishii Kayoko
Can a Robot Intentionally Conduct Mutual Interactions with Human Being?

15.30     Ronald C. Arkin
On the Ethical Quandaries of a Practicing Roboticist: A First Hand Look
FRIDAY 22 JUNE
TRACK 11 – Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics [W3]
11.45-12.45     Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics – Chair: Gianmarco Veruggio

11.45     Jutta Weber
Analysing Material, Semiotic and Socio-Political Dimensions of Artificial Agents

12.15     Daniel Persson
Ethics of Intelligent Systems – Artefacts, Producers and Users

12.45-13.30     Lunch next to workshop rooms

13.30-15.30     Philosophy and Ethics of Robotics – Chair: Gianmarco Veruggio

13.30     Merel Noorman
Exploring the Limits to the Autonomy of Artificial agents

14.00     Susana Nascimento
Autonomous Anthropomorphisms: Robot Narratives and Critical Social Theories

14.30     Peter Asaro
How Just Could A Robot War Be?

15.00     Edward H. Spence
Robot Rights: The Moral Life of Androids

Dwan Ev ceremoniously soldered the final connection with gold. The eyes of a dozen television cameras watched him and the subether bore throughout the universe a dozen pictures of what he was doing.
He straightened and nodded to Dwar Reyn, then moved to a position beside the switch that would complete the contact when he threw it. The switch that would connect, all at once, all of the monster computing machines of all the populated planets in the universe — ninety-six billion planets — into the supercircuit that would connect them all into one supercalculator, one cybernetics machine that would combine all the knowledge of all the galaxies.
Dwar Reyn spoke briefly to the watching and listening trillions. Then after a moment’s silence he said, “Now, Dwar Ev.”
Dwar Ev threw the switch. There was a mighty hum, the surge of power from ninety-six billion planets. Lights flashed and quieted along the miles-long panel.
Dwar Ev stepped back and drew a deep breath. “The honor of asking the first question is yours, Dwar Reyn.”
“Thank you,” said Dwar Reyn. “It shall be a question which no single cybernetics machine has been able to answer.”
He turned to face the machine. “Is there a God?”
The mighty voice answered without hesitation, without the clicking of a single relay.
“Yes, now there is a God.”
Sudden fear flashed on the face of Dwar Ev. He leaped to grab the switch.
A bolt of lightning from the cloudless sky struck him down and fused the switch shut.

(Fredric Brown, “Answer”)

Back in the 1960s there was a TV show, My Living Doll, about a psychologist who takes care of a sexy female robot Rhonda, played by Julie Newmar. The gynoid is created by a military scientist Dr. Miller who gets transferred to Pakistan but before leaving he gives the gynoid to his friend Bob Macdonald whose Job is to educate the female robot. Bob has to do this while maintaining secrecy regarding the identity of the robot and also making sure that his neighbor keep away from her. Wikipedia notes that “According to The Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang, My Living Doll is the source of the science fiction phrase “Does not compute” in popular culture.” This was one of the earliest shows which (implicitly) explored theme of sexuality between a gynoid and humans. The show lasted only one season although it seemed to have a lot going for it. The main problem was that it was up against Bonanza which had the same timeslot. In a way number six of Battlestar Galactica is the descendant of Rhonda, metaphorically speaking of course.

The most famous book on this subject is Love and Sex with Robots by David Levy. In this book David Levy considers the basis and implications of relations between humans and robots in the not so distant future. He compares this phenomenon with how humans fall in love with other humans, make bonds with other animals even inanimate objects like their cars. While many of the themes discussed in the book may seem like far fetched science fiction, some of the things discussed in the book are already becoming a reality e.g., the existence of primitive sex dolls, elderly people forming bonds with their robotic pets etc. The era of human-machine relations may not be as far off as we may think! In the coming weeks I will also be posting various reviews of the book along with interviews of David Levy from different sources.