Aussies are worried AI will take their jobs... but it could also replace you in the bedroom: Robots to become our new sex partners much sooner than you think

Daily Mail​

a day ago

Imagine coming home to your perfect partner who always agrees with you, never argues, enjoys all the things you do, and will have sex with you whenever you want.
That could be a reality soon, but it will be done with your AI robot partner, according to artificial intelligence experts and futurists.
Late last year, futurist Dr Ian Pearson anticipated humanity 'will start to see some forms of robot sex appearing in high-income, very wealthy households'.
Associate Professor Niusha Shafiabady, who specialises in computational and artificial intelligence at Australian Catholic University and Charles Darwin University, told Daily Mail that people could soon be having sex with robots.
'They won't be metal. There will be textures to make them feel human,' she said.
'For our generation that sounds bizarre, but it might not be in future generations.
'To be honest, I think we might have that kind of society.'
Professor Shafiabady said current teenagers might be the ones to 'up the ante' in human-robot relationships when it comes time for them to settle down with a partner over the next decade.
'They would already be very accepting of technology. Their mindset will be that they're very comfortable with it,' she said.
'A percentage of the population might want to program a robot to be their perfect partner.'
Professor Shafiabady explained these relationships could happen because AI was really good at mimicking the behaviour of different systems.
'So when you make an AI robot, that robot is programmed to mimic the behaviour of a human, and it's not just any human,' she said.
'For example, in different families you might have people that are aggressive or sad but AI can always be happy, and it can mimic empathy and it has the perfect emotional response.
'You could program the ideal partner using AI.'
Humans have been conditioning themselves, slowly, to be comfortable with computers since the turn of the century.
People who grew up in the 20th century only interacted with other humans for play and fun.
Since 2000, most kids have had some kind of computer screen to interact with as an option rather than another human.
'Is it ethical to continue to erode human-to-human relationships, specifically for people who are more vulnerable like kids?' Professor Shafiabady asked.
'The question is, because a lot of people view this in the scepticism of having these AI robots eroding human-to-human relationships, is that the path that we want to head towards or not?'
Professor Shafiabady, an internationally recognised expert in the field of computational intelligence, said while it sounded good to have a partner that always agreed with you and did what you wanted, there were drawbacks.
She predicted that most humans would eventually get sick of a 'perfect partner'.
'Humans are designed in a way, in order to feel happiness, they have to have a sense of sadness too,' she said.
'After a few years we could see the flaws of those AI robots who will start to feel empty because humans will only be used to being praised.
'It's very unnatural with our nature.'
At the moment, human-like sexbots can cost more than $15,000, so the price may be a stumbling block for people, en masse, to buy a robot partner.
'I think it's likely that for some of the population this might be a trend depending on the cost,' Professor Shafiabady said.
'If an AI robot becomes something cheap, like a lot of computer programs we have now, we will see a big change in our society.'
According to Bedbible, about 156 sex robots were sold every day in 2024.
Dr Pearson predicted women would be the ones most likely to seek out a robot partner because they already have a technological head start.
'Vibrators have been around for over a century,' Dr Pearson said.
'But now the vibrant sex toy industry doesn't just make standalone devices, but teledildonic devices that bring all the fun and functionality of computing and networks to sex too.'
'I think it's the men who should be worried,' Harvard-trained mathematician and data scientist Dr Cathy O'Neil said. 'It's entirely possible that robots can outperform them.'
Dr Pearson predicted that by 2050, sex with robots will overtake sex with other humans.