Constructions of Moral Values in Reader Comments of the Samantha Sex Robot Discourse in East African Newspapers

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-403
Author(s):  
Joseph Njuguna
Keyword(s):  
Moral Values ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
East African ◽  
Majority Opinion ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Ethical Evaluations ◽  
Reader Comments ◽  
Domestic Instability ◽  
Wrath Of God

Abstract Although artificial intelligence (ai) has been touted as revolutionary, this technology has sparked ethical concerns, with man accused of attempting to create a ‘play God’ with it. While creators of sex robots have been hailed for reigniting sexual relationships, they have received flack in equal measure for their apparent moral absurdity. From a Christian values perspective, this study interrogates how the Samantha sex robot invention was framed in 129 online reader comments in two East African newspapers – The Standard and The Daily Monitor. Findings showed that comments fell under the value themes of ‘family bond’, ‘compromised conscience’, and ‘apocalypse’. While a few positioned sex robots as a panacea to domestic instability, the majority opinion viewed the robots as ‘destroyers’ of the God-ordained family unit and tools of dehumanizing women, and thus morally contradictory to Christian teachings. Justifying sex robots was considered to be ‘negotiating’ or ‘rationalizing’ with established Christian values and therefore ‘rebelling against God’. Man’s extremity with the creation and use of sex robots sparked predictions of a self-fulfilling prophecy of his extermination for inciting the wrath of God. The preservation of culture also underpinned the ethical evaluations of robots by some commenters.

From Sex Robots to Love Robots: Is Mutual Love with a Robot Possible?

Robot Sex ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Nyholm ◽  
Lily Eva Frank
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Job Description ◽  
Sex Robots

This chapter looks into the possibility of genuine loving relationships with robots (mutual love). Our primary aim is to offer a framework for approaching the question of mutual love. But we also sketch a tentative answer. Our tentative answer is that whereas mutual love between humans and sex-robots is not in principle impossible, it is hard to achieve. Nevertheless, building robots capable of mutual love may help to address concerns raised by critics of human-robot sexual relationships. Our discussion below generates a “job description” that advanced sex-robots would need to live up in order to be able to participate in relationships that can be recognized as mutual love.

scholarly journals How Pills Undermine Skills: Moralization of Cognitive Enhancement and Causal Selection

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilian Mihailov ◽  
Blanca Rodríguez López ◽  
Florian Cova ◽  
Ivar Rodríguez Hannikainen
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Enhancement ◽  
Moral Values ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Causal Contribution ◽  
Follow Up Study ◽  
Causal Selection

Despite the promise to boost human potential and wellbeing, enhancement drugs face recurring ethical scrutiny. The present studies examined attitudes toward cognitive enhancement in order to learn more about these ethical concerns, who has them, and the circumstances in which they arise. Fairness-based concerns underlay opposition to competitive use—even though enhancement drugs were described as legal, accessible and affordable. Moral values also influenced how subsequent rewards were causally explained: Opposition to competitive use reduced the causal contribution of the enhanced winner’s skill, particularly among fairness-minded individuals. In a follow-up study, we asked: Would the normalization of cognitive enhancement alleviate concerns about its unfairness? Indeed, proliferation of competitive cognitive enhancement eradicated fairness-based concerns, and boosted the causal role of the winner’s skill. In contrast, purity-based concerns emerged in both recreational and competitive contexts, and were not assuaged by normalization.

On the Very Idea of Sex with Robots

Robot Sex ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Migotti ◽  
Nicole Wyatt
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Activity ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Talk Exchange ◽  
Paul Grice

If a sex robot is a robot is a robot with whom (or which) we can have sex, then we need to know what it is to have sex with a robot. In order to know this, we need to know what it is to have sex, and what a robot is. This chapter examines the first question, what is it to have sex. It argues that having sex can be understood as a an epitome of being sexual together in much the same way having a conversation can be understood as an epitome of what Paul Grice calls a “talk exchange”. The answer to this question sheds some light on the second by telling us some of the criteria a robot would have to meet before we could plausibly have sex with it. The chapter concludes that as long as the sex robots in question do not exercise real agency, then sexual relationships between human beings will continue to offer something that sexual activity involving the sex robots does not.

scholarly journals The Symbolic-Consequences Argument in the Sex Robot Debate

Robot Sex ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Danaher
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Experimental Approach ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Sex Partners ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
The Status ◽  
Critical Scrutiny ◽  
Common Objection

This chapter examines a common objection to sex robots: the symbolic-consequences argument. According to this argument sex robots are problematic because they symbolise something disturbing about our attitude to sex-related norms such as consent and the status of our sex partners, and because of the potential consequences of this symbolism. After formalising this objection and considering several real-world uses of it, the chapter subjects it to critical scrutiny. It argues that while there are grounds for thinking that sex robots could symbolically represent a troubling attitude toward women (and maybe children) and the norms of interpersonal sexual relationships, the troubling symbolism is going to be removable in many instances and reformable in others. What will ultimately matter are the consequences of the symbolism but these consequences are likely to be difficult to ascertain. This may warrant an explicitly experimental approach to the development of this technology.

The Ethics of the Artificial Lover

2020 ◽  
pp. 271-290
Author(s):  
Kate Devlin
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Commercial Viability ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Single Form

This chapter discusses ethical concerns associated with sex robots, which are now becoming a reality and a commercial viability. It argues that we have the chance to shape and explore this technology, to make it more equal and diverse. Many of the sex robots being developed today have a very specific female-gendered embodiment, which runs the risk of objectifying women. To address this concern, the chapter proposes that we move away from human-like, human-size dolls toward sex robots that take nonhuman forms. Not being tied to one single form provides an opportunity to think ethically about the development of sex technology.

scholarly journals It Loves Me, It Loves Me Not

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sven Nyholm ◽  
Lily Eva Frank ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Facial Expressions ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Emotional Vulnerability ◽  
Human Tendency ◽  
Meaningful Relationships ◽  
Do So

Drawing on insights from robotics, psychology, and human-computer interaction, developers of sex robots are currently aiming to create emotional bonds of attachment and even love between human users and their products. This is done by creating robots that can exhibit a range of facial expressions, that are made with human-like artificial skin, and that possess a rich vocabulary with many conversational possibilities. In light of the human tendency to anthropomorphize artefacts, we can expect that designers will have some success and that this will lead to the attribution of mental states to the robot that the robot does not actually have, as well as the inducement of significant emotional responses in the user. This raises the question of whether it might be ethically problematic to try to develop robots that appear to love their users. We discuss three possible ethical concerns about this aim: first, that designers may be taking advantage of users’ emotional vulnerability; second, that users may be deceived; and, third, that relationships with robots may block off the possibility of more meaningful relationships with other humans. We argue that developers should attend to the ethical constraints suggested by these concerns in their development of increasingly humanoid sex robots. We discuss two different ways in which they might do so.

Robot Sex

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Academic Research ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Sexual Interaction ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
Legal Implications ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

Sexbots are coming. Given the pace of technological advances, it is inevitable that realistic robots specifically designed for people’s sexual gratification will be developed in the not-too-distant future. Despite popular culture’s fascination with the topic, and the emergence of the much-publicized Campaign Against Sex Robots, there has been little academic research on the social, philosophical, moral, and legal implications of robot sex. This book fills the gap, offering perspectives from philosophy, psychology, religious studies, economics, and law on the possible future of robot-human sexual relationships. Contributors discuss what a sex robot is, if they exist, why we should take the issue seriously, and what it means to “have sex” with a robot. They make the case for developing sex robots, arguing for their beneficial nature, and the case against it, on religious and moral grounds; they consider the subject from the robot’s perspective, addressing such issues as consent and agency; and they ask whether it is possible for a human to form a mutually satisfying, loving relationship with a robot. Finally, they speculate about the future of human-robot sexual interaction, considering the social acceptability of sex robots and the possible effect on society. Contributors include: Marina Adshade, Thomas Arnold, Julie Carpenter, John Danaher, Brian Earp, Lily Eva Frank, Joshua Goldstein, Michael Hauskeller, Noreen Herzfeld, Neil McArthur, Mark Migotti, Sven Nyholm, Ezio di Nucci, Steve Petersen, Anders Sandberg, Matthias Scheutz, Litska Strikwerda, Nicole Wyatt

scholarly journals Curiosity and other attitudes towards sex robots: Results of an online survey

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Marianne Brandon ◽  
Nadezhda Shlykova ◽  
Abraham Morgentaler
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Relationship Satisfaction ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Incipient Stage ◽  
Sex Robots ◽  
Attitudes Toward Sex ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Technology Advance

As artificial intelligence and technology advance, mobile robots capable of human intimacy are an inevitable consequence of this progress. Such a profound shift in sexual technology will herald both advantages and disadvantages for human intimate relationships, yet a paucity of research exists on the study of human-robot sexual relationships. We believe a greater understanding of attitudes toward sex robots will be of value as this emerging technology progresses from its currently incipient stage. We conducted an online survey exploring potential gender differences in attitudes and opinions about sex robots. Survey responses were analyzed by gender, age, relationship status, relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction. Results confirm our hypothesis, that men report more positive reactions to sex with robots than women. Indeed, on no question did women report more enthusiasm or optimism about the arrival of sex robots than did men. This conclusion begs the question, what will sex robots mean to the future of gender relations, and in particular, sexual relationships? Engaging one another in a dialogue about the increasing impact technology will have on human intimacy can only strengthen our efforts to mold its effect into a primarily positive one. In addition, it is our expectation that dialogue about these gender differences can assist psychologists, sex therapists, anthropologists, roboticists and couples in navigating technological advancements as they increasingly impact human intimacy. Indeed, this dialogue may be increasingly urgent as the sudden and severe impact of COVID-19 raises increasing safety concerns for human/human sexual relationships.

Scanning electron microscopy of the integument of schistosoma rodhaini

1986 ◽  
Vol 44 ◽  
pp. 132-133
Author(s):  
P. Evers ◽  
C. Schutte ◽  
C. D. Dettman
Keyword(s):  
Electron Microscopy ◽  
Scanning Electron Microscopy ◽  
Oral Sucker ◽  
Adult Male ◽  
Dorsal Surface ◽  
Ventral Surface ◽  
Sensory Receptors ◽  
East African ◽  
Dorsal Midline ◽  
Scanning Electron

S.rodhaini (Brumpt 1931) is a parasite of East African rodents which may possibly hybridize with the human schistosome S. mansoni. The adult male at maturity measures approximately 3mm long and possesses both oral and ventral suckers and a marked gynaecophoric canal. The oral sucker is surrounded by a ring of sensory receptors with a large number of inwardly-pointing spines set into deep sockets occupying the bulk of the ventral surface of the sucker. Numbers of scattered sensory receptors are found on both dorsal and ventral surfaces of the head (Fig. 1) together with two conspicuous rows of receptors situated symmetrically on each side of the midline. One row extends along the dorsal surface of the head midway between the dorsal midline and the lateral margin.

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