Sex-bots are coming and the future is rather exciting! This week, Neil McArthur, The Director of the Centre for Applied Ethics from the University of Manitoba, joins us to discuss his research with sex robots. He shares his insights on the ethics of “using” sex robots and their potential benefits from a compassionate perspective.

Pre-order Neil's book on Amazon today!

This podcast is brought to you by Desire Resorts. 

Rough Transcript:

This is a computer-generated rough transcript, so please excuse any typos. This podcast is an informational conversation and is not a substitute for medical, health or other professional advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the services of an appropriate professional should you have individual questions or concerns.

Sex Robots: Technology, Ethics & What The Future Holds

Participant #1:

Hello. Hello. This is Jess O'Reilly. I am sex with Dr. Jess. And as usual, I am here to give you practical information grounded in science that you can put into practice today or tonight to make your relationship and sex life more fulfilling. And today's episode is brought to you by Desire Resorts, one of my favorite spots in the world to visit one of my favorite spots to get naked on the beach and meet new friends from all around the world. So make sure you check them out at Desire Resorts. Now, I am really intrigued by today's topic, partly because I don't know a lot about it, and partly because it's just blowing up when you look at the numbers, the billions of dollars in this industry. And we are talking about the industry and research area of robot sex. That's right. Robot sex. And I was reading about a new sex robot that costs about $15,000. And this robot laughs at your jokes. It makes its own jokes. She remembers your favorite foods knows your birthday. She can quote Shakespeare. And of course, the robot is fully equipped for sex in multiple holes, so I can't wait to learn more to teach me. I'm going to be learning along with you. I have with me today. Neil MacArthur, a Winnipeg based sex researcher director for the center of Professional and Applied Ethics at the University of Manitoba. Hi there, Neil. Hi, Jess. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm really well now, Neil, you just came back from Paris and Prague, two cities of sex. Did you go to the Sex Machine Museum in Prague? I absolutely did go to the Sex Machine Museum. It was fascinating. It's nice to see the history and how long the history is of people having sex with machines. How long have we been having sex with machines? Well, you certainly find lots of I guess you could call the machines going back to the Victorian era. There's probably things that might count earlier than that, but certainly for the last 150 years, we have been coming up with various kinds of contraptions. Originally, doctors were very worried in the 19th century about women's inability to have orgasms. And so they started coming up with various technological solutions to do that. And so there's been medical technologies. And then, of course, also people just inventing things for pleasure. My goodness. Okay. So I have to ask, how did you get into robot sex? Well, that's an interesting way of putting it. As a researcher, I got into robot sex. I must say, I've always been interested in technology, and I've always been interested in sex. And I've always been interested in the ethical problems that each of those fields raise. And this was a natural intersection. I don't think we know a lot about the future and what's coming in terms of technology. There's a lot of uncertainty, but I do think we know one thing for sure. And that is that very soon people will be having sex with robots. And so these are coming. And I just figured if these are going to happen, we should start thinking about what it means. All right. And you have a book coming out.