Expect controversy when sex robots arrive

There is much more to robots than the page 1 Dec. 6 Gazette story suggested. I raised the question years ago about sex robots (“The Futurist,” 1997, Harper's Magazine, 1997).

At the moment they are expensive and marginal. However, as the price comes down, one should expect a whirlwind of controversy. A married female or male has a sexual relation with a robot. Is that adultery? What if the robot is created to look like a child? Pedophilia? If you just take a few minutes to think about it, robots are just not machines. Inadvertently, there is some internal mechanism that makes some robots more powerful than others that are built exactly the same.

Put 20 robots of the same manufacturer in a room and soon there is stratification. Some have more territory than others. Sometimes, it seems as if machines have personalities.

It is a delight to read about them now, but I think attitudes will change when we live with them. Can you kill one? Do they have rights?

Joel Snell

Cedar Rapids