Are We Ready for Sex Robots?

Matthias Scheutz, Thomas Arnold

Abstract: Sex robots are gaining a remarkable amount of attention in current discussions about technology and the future of human relationships. To help understand what kinds of relationships people will have with these robots, empirical data about people's views of sex robots is needed. We report the results of the first systematic survey that asks about the appropriateness and value of sex robots, acceptable forms they can take, and the degree to which using them counts as sex. The results show a consistent difference in the uses for which women and men found sex robots to be appropriate, with women less and men more inclined to consider them socially useful. We also found convergences on what sex robots are like and how sex with them is to be classified, suggesting that larger views about relationships and society, not just understandings of sex robots themselves, should be a matter for more research and thus frame future work on the ethics of sex robots.