Sex Robots just “ramped up toaster with a fetching name”: legal grey area over new plug and play tech

Summarised by Centrist 

US Law Professor Jonathan Turley discusses some of the legal limits of privacy and sexual freedom with regard to increasing numbers of “sex bots” and even “sex bot brothels” worldwide. New bots, using artificial intelligence, have lifelike responses, can respond to questions, display emotions and respond to touch.

Turley says, “that from a legal perspective, these sex robots are nothing more than a ramped up toaster with a fetching name.” 

Even the term “brothel” can be challenged, he says. For instance, in Paris, a sex doll brothel was opened and licensed as a “game centre.” 

The debate is an extension of fights over pornography and prostitution. However, Turley says the bots remove the alleged victim in these scenarios: 

“No one is being directly harmed when someone has relations with what is essentially an advanced appliance.”

Nonetheless, the vast majority of people support banning childlike sex bots. But Turley cautions the law may be vague in barring bots perceived as having “features that resemble those of a minor.”

Still, bots resembling children have already been banned in some countries, including the US with the “Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronic Pedophilic Robots (CREEPER) Act”.  

Read more over at Jonathan Turley