Sex Robots and the Law

Sex robots raise ethical, safety, privacy and data protection issues.[1] It is predicted that sexbots will become increasingly popular with further technological development and they will become available at lower costs. [2]

While some roboticists have suggested that child sex robots could be used to medically treat those with paedophilic tendencies [3], I strongly disagree with this position. I believe that the the use of child sex robots could be very dangerous and would lead to an increased objectification of people and could lead to an increase in violent sex crimes. The US has banned the sale and distribution of child sex robots and similarly the UK has taken steps to regulate child sex robots. [4] I believe that other countries should follow suit to clampdown on the production, sale and distribution of child sex robots.

If sex robots are permissible and integrated in society as “electronic persons” than the issue of sexual consent arises.[5 ] One important question to ask is whether it “is conceivable that a sex robot might be able to consent to sex?”[6]

Danaher argues that sex robots lack conscious experience and therefore sex robots cannot be conceived as being able to consent or not. [7] I take a similar position to the authors Frank and Nyholm, and I believe that robots of the future will become more sophisticated and will develop a “degree of consciousness” and thus sexual consent could be conceivable. [8]

I believe that provided robots are given the status of ‘personhood’ consent is essential for sexual interactions. I think that it will be necessary to develop sex robots that are capable of giving or refusing consent. By creating a robot that is capable of giving consent it will lead to a “non-objectionable” sexual interaction similar to sexual interactions between humans. [9] However, provided that a robot does not consent and is forced to have sex with a human would this amount to a crime? Could a different standard similar to consent be required for human-robot sex? [10]

I think this topic needs to be further explored to avoid negative consequences of human sex robot interactions.

[1] Ingrid Torjesen, “Society must consider risks of sex robots, report warns” (2017) British Medical Journal; 358 doi: 10.1136/bmj.j3267

[2] Ibid

[3] John Danaher, “Regulating Child Sex Robots: Restriction or Experimentation?” (2019) Medical Law Review Vol 0 , №0 doi:10.1093/medlaw/fwz002

[4] Ibid

[5] Lily Frank & Sven Nyholm, “Robot sex and consent: Is consent to sex between a robot and a human conceivable, possible and desirable?” (2017) Artificial Intelligence Law 25

[6] Ibid

[7] Ibid

[8] Ibid

[9] Ibid

[10] Ibid