klsimmons.medium.com /can-ai-robots-replace-prostitutes-or-even-be-worthy-companions-6b0dc178cee

Can AI Robots Replace Prostitutes or Even Be Worthy Companions?

KL Simmons 5-6 minutes 3/18/2023

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE|RELATIONSHIPS

Television and movies reveal what is already unfolding in the present day

Photo by KL Simmons

Several months ago I visited Amsterdam for the first time and happened to stumble through the famous Red Light District.

It got me thinking about legal prostitution, sex trafficking, and artificially intelligent sex workers, among other things.

My boyfriend is pursuing his master’s in cognitive science, which includes the study of artificial intelligence, machine learning, psychology, and neuroscience.

As a result, we tend to have some fascinating conversations that center around these topics.

After we returned from Amsterdam, I learned that prostitution is also legal in Germany as well.

One of my friends recently told me about a daily occurrence in her residential neighborhood where, once the sun goes down, women gather in a parking lot to have men pick them up and pay them for sex.

The fact that sex work is normalized here made me think of what it must be like to treat it as any other normal job.

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Over the past few years, I have listened to podcasts and have read many articles that discuss at length what it will be like to have artificial intelligence replace workers in various fields.

“AI’s core promise — the reason we are pursuing it to begin with — is that it will be able to do things more accurately, more cheaply and more quickly than humans can do them today. Once AI can deliver on this promise, there will be no practical or economic justification for humans to continue to be involved in many fields.”

For the first time, I thought to myself, “Would that include sex work?”

It’s funny that I never really thought of it before, considering the popular HBO show “Westworld”, which I started watching two years ago.

I didn’t know anything about it beforehand and was thoroughly intrigued by it from the beginning.

Many of the characters in the show are AI robots that look and are programmed to act like humans. You truly cannot tell them apart until they die.

The AI humans are all part of a resort where super-rich people live out their fantasies in ways they never would in the real world.

Most of these fantasies involve guns, sex, violence, or a combination of them.

The AI humans were just machines, not real people, therefore they could do whatever they wanted with them.

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Some of the scenes made me really uncomfortable which I think was part of the point that the show was trying to make.

I am one of those people who tends to personalize the machines I own.

A few months ago I bought an automatic vacuum cleaner. My boyfriend and I named him Robby (Robby the robot).

So of course I empathized with the AI robots that looked human considering how awful they were being treated. I did not blame them for what they ended up doing.

I applauded and was disturbed, especially once I found out that part of this Westworld fantasy is already happening in real life in places such as Spain.

While thoughts about prostitution and AI were swirling through my mind, I happened to come across an article by that made me think even deeper about the reality of artificial intelligence and sex.

The information applies to sex workers, but more so to society as a whole, which really got my wheels turning.

One of the key points that Dr. Yildiz makes in his article is that for those who suffer from chronic loneliness, sex robots or virtual reality tools can make significant improvements in their quality of life.

I hadn’t thought about the emotional comfort that this technology can provide, although this was something highlighted in the Westworld.

I didn’t take it seriously as something tangible in our world.

As open-minded as I am, I think that it would be hard for me to adapt to people having AI human-looking bots as companions.

Photo by Henk Mul on Unsplash

There’s a German movie I recently watched, “I’m Your Man”, where the main character, a female scientist, was asked to participate in a study to receive funding for her work.

For three weeks, she had to live with an AI human-looking man, a very attractive one, who was designed to be the perfect man for her.

The scientist was annoyed and very uninterested at first. She treated the robot as a mere object. Then things changed and became quite complicated with each passing day.

It was funny, and fascinating and raised very good questions as to how we as a society could or would integrate these kinds of products into our everyday lives.

The reality of artificial intelligence becoming a more integral part of people’s lives is here.

For some, this can be a bit unsettling, but living in denial is not the answer.

The world is quickly transforming. There are conversations we can have, as well as things we can do to help this transformation go in more positive directions.

I believe that critically thinking with an open mind and gathering knowledge from credible sources while familiarizing ourselves with the unfamiliar is not only beneficial but necessary for us to move forward to a better and brighter future hand in hand with artificial intelligence.

Photo by Hitesh Choudhary on Unsplash