Sexbots: Replacements for Sex Workers? Ethical Constraints on the Design of Sentient Beings for Utilitarian Purposes

Abstract

Much sex is neither intimate nor loving but is accompanied by coercion and/or commodification in the billion dollar sex industry. Some suggest that sexbots replace sex workers. I consider ethicolegal issues arising over how far human rights and laws protecting sex workers and other citizens should apply to sexbots. Without legal protections, the sex industry would undoubtedly produce sexbots for morally unacceptable sexual practices, like pedophilia. Sexbots thus test boundaries of acceptable sexual practice. Sexbots could be manufactured who gained pleasure from pain, or who wanted to be tortured or killed, or to manifest qualities which specialist websites show have fetishistic appeal, including children and nonhumans. My contribution to HCI research is this critical analysis of how far sexbots' cognitive, emotional and physical abilities and their autonomous choices and decision-making might permissibly be restricted and what legal protections they should be afforded. I argue that a code of ethical design and agreement on their ethicolegal status are urgently needed.