Various media are reporting roboticists at The University of Science and Technology of China have developed an extremely lifelike girl-robot named Jia Jia. Some are calling it the "robot Goddess." As Instapundit Glenn Reynolds observed, pressures to develop such technology are driven by the Chinese obsession with sons, resulting in a substantial shortage of young women.
The obvious sexbot implications are relevant far beyond China. I predict an eventual market wherever there are poorly socialized people with money. And not just for sex. If the Castaway played by Tom Hanks can turn a volleyball into a "companion" named "Wilson" I think many lonely people will warm to a lifelike robot. We are, after all, a social species who need others even if we do not attract them.
As the number of aged individuals grows there will be many more lonely oldsters who need, and can afford, a lifelike "companion" on duty 24/7, who won't steal the silver or abuse the querulous elderly person in their care. BTW, did you notice how naturally we slip into using personal pronouns for such machines, as I did in the prior sentence, writing "who" instead of "which"?
Random plot ideas for science fiction authors: Imagine a future in which rich children have android "twins" for company as well as an android nanny. Or a robot brothel in which each "girl" has a paper band around her hips imprinted with the words "Sanitized for your safety," as motel toilets once did. Alternatively, humans could end up as "pets" kept by machine intelligences which find us amusing and endearing, in a word, "cute."
Such eventualities could trigger Herbert's "Butlerian jihad" against machine intelligence. How long before the ACLU sues to get androids "human rights"?
