Building better Sex Robots: Lessons from Feminist Pornography

How should we react to the development of sexbot technology? Taking their cue from anti-porn feminism, several academic critics lament the development of sexbot technology, arguing that it objectifies and subordinates women, is likely to promote misogynistic attitudes toward sex, and may need to be banned or restricted. In this chapter I argue for an alternative response. Taking my cue from the sex positive ‘feminist porn’ movement, I argue that the best response to the development of ‘bad’ sexbots is to make better ones. This will require changes to the content, process and context of sexbot development. Doing so will acknowledge the valuable role that technology can play in human sexuality, and allow us to challenge gendered norms and assumptions about male and female sexual desire. This will not be a panacea to the social problems that could arise from sexbot development, but it offers a more realistic and hopeful vision for the future of this technology in a pluralistic and progressive society

Love and Sex with Robots: Second International Conference, LSR 2016, London, UK, December 19-20, 2016, Revised Selected Papers

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the Second International Conference on Love and Sex with Robots 2016 in December 2016, in London, UK. The 12 revised papers presented together with 1 keynote were carefully reviewed and selected from a total of 38 submissions. The papers of the Second International Conference have been accepted and reviewed in 2015 but could not be presented as there was no conference in 2015 but at the conference in 2016. The topics of the conferences were as follows: robot emotions, humanoid robots, clone robots, entertainment robots, robot personalities, teledildonics, intelligent electronic sex hardware, gender approaches, affective approaches, psychological approaches, sociological approaches, roboethics, and philosophical approaches

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 4

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 4

The Ethics of Digital Touch

This paper outlines the foundations for an ethics of digital touch. Digital touch refers to new hardware and software technologies that provide somatic sensations such as touch and kinaesthesis, either as a stand-alone interface to users, or as part of a wider immersive experience. A common feature of all digital touch is the direct interaction between a designed stimulus and the human skin. Digital touch is therefore proximal. In contrast, other interface sensory technologies such as graphics and sound are distal since they rely on exteroceptive senses. The proximity of touch underlies the potential value of digital touch systems, for example in applications such as communication, affective computing, medicine and education. At the same time, proximity raises a distinctive set of ethical considerations, which we here bring together for the first time. We first consider the distinctive physiology of human somatic sensations and the various functions that digital technologies can deliver via these sensations. A systems neurophysiology understanding of touch leads us to identify several ethical issues for future digital touch technology. Digital touch technologies directly impact a user’s personal space, raising important questions about control, transparency, and epistemic procedures. First, because human somatosensation is “always on”, digital touch technologies that take advantage of this (i.e., alerting systems) threaten our sensory autonomy (the right to choose what sensations we experience). Second, users may reasonably want to know who or what is touching them, and for what purpose. Consent for digital touch will therefore need to be carefully and transparently transacted. We consider how this might be done. Third, because touch gives us a special, direct sense of interacting with our physical environment, digital touch technologies that manipulate this interaction could potentially provide a major epistemic challenge, changing a user’s basic understanding of reality and their relation to it. The benefits of creating novel technology-mediated touch experiences will need to be balanced against the ethical risks of unmanageable cognitive and socio-affective challenges. Interestingly, most research effort in digital touch has focused on a user’s haptic interaction with external objects. However, our analyses suggest that the strongest and most immediate ethical risks surrounding digital touch technologies arise when interacting with other agents, rather than passive objects, and when users are being passively touched, rather than during active haptic exploration

Purchasing sex on the streets: a study of male buyers in the heterosexual street sex market

There is a small but growing body of research into the male buyers in heterosexual on-street sex markets. This thesis contributes new knowledge relating to learned sex buying behaviours and adds to previous research by providing a model of these complex, multi-layered, learned behaviours regarding men's motivations to pay women for sex. The thesis goes on to explore how the model could contribute to debates on prostitution policy as well as to wider discussions around men, sex, power, and misogyny. A social constructionist, multi-case study approach is developed for this research. Nine case studies are presented, each with a single sex buyer as the primary focus. Utilising semi-structured interviews as the primary data collection method, these are processed through reflexive thematic analysis to identify common themes. The results are discussed in the context of the sex buyers' emergent life circumstances, cultural discourses of prostitution, and narratives of interpersonal relationships and sex buying activities. The findings of this research are presented as six pillars that underpin the social construction of prostitution and sex buying: mating systems, masculinity, culture, constructed narratives, female marginalisation, and policy agendas. Five of these pillars are derived from previous literature with constructed narratives presented as a new finding illuminating men's sex buying behaviours in terms of a three-step process of identifying a 'need', creating an opportunity, and justifying the behaviour. Male sex buying narratives and learned behaviours are shown to experience different spheres of influence within these pillars, demonstrating a lack of heterogeneity that can be explained through the model. The first four pillars are identified as being sex buyer driven and representing male learned sex buying behaviours. A model based on three levels is presented from the lowest level of learning sexual behaviours through processes such as objectification, power imbalances, and cultural influences. A behavioural path leads to the second level where these behaviours are acted upon resulting in responses such as situational sexual behaviour, bounded intimacy, or power and control. Finally, behaviour normalisation ii leads to the surface level where the constructed narratives provide a rationale for sex buying. Male learned sex buying behaviours and female marginalisation are identified as key drivers for men buying sex and women providing it. Recommendations are presented that address these in conjunction, within society, to bring about a social change rather than relying solely on legislation, together with societal, policy makers, police, and other relevant stakeholders' contributions to this

Soziale Roboter, Empathie und Emotionen : eine Untersuchung aus interdisziplinärer Perspektive

Bericht: «Soziale Roboter, Empathie und Emotionen»Robots, empathy, emotions, technology assessmen

Empathy-Based Strain Among Social Workers Working With Couples Experiencing Infidelity

Emotionally focused therapy (EFT) social workers engaged in the practice of couples therapy often work with the issue of infidelity, which can be traumatizing to clients. EFT relies heavily on empathy-based interventions that allow the therapist to experience the pain of clients in the process of facilitating the repair of a couple\u27s attachment bond. Yet the nature of EFT with infidelity can increase social workers’ risk of developing empathy-based strain (EBS), which can lead to personal and professional detriment and practice that harm clients. The purpose of this study was to identify and describe how social workers who practice EFT with couples in counseling for infidelity experience, conceptualize, and cope with emotional strain in their professional practice. A basic qualitative design was employed for this study. The conceptual framework for this study was constructivist self-developmental theory, which explained the development of EBS as an adaptive response to protect the self. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and analyzed through the use of thematic coding. The results of this study illustrated the experiences and conceptualization of EBS among EFT social workers. Multiple themes suggested that a significant amount of coping with EBS is found through the model and framework of EFT, although additional coping outside the model is still needed. The data also suggested a need for EFT training protocols to promote awareness and identification of EBS and ways that EBS can be managed. With more knowledge of EBS and how to cope with it, clinicians may be able to promote their own resilience while also providing better care for clients leading to positive social change

Immersion : Grenzen und Metaphorik des digitalen Subjekts

2. Hrsg. des Heftes: Dawid Kasprowicz Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter, Dr. Pablo Abend und J.-Prof. Dr. Benjamin Beil sind Herausgeber der Reihe. Die Herausgeber der einzelnen Hefte sind renommierte Wissenschaftler und -innen aus dem In- und Ausland.Von der Verschränkung unseres Alltags mit digitalen Medien bis hin zum Erlebniswert technisch-responsiver Räume über das Attunement atmosphärisch gestimmter Arbeitsplätze: All diese Formen der Einbettung oder des Eintauchens in mediatisierte Umwelten finden ihre Bezeichnung als Immersion. Die Immersion ist dabei aber weder für digitale noch für artifizielle Umwelten reserviert. Sie stellt vielmehr eine Medienpraxis für die Konstruktion von Subjektivität und dessen Grenzen dar. Subjektivität ist damit unter Bedingungen der Immersion eben keine Auflösungs- oder Täuschungsfigur. Denn so heterogen das Verfahren der Immersion auch sein mag, so zielt es doch auf die Frage nach neuen Bestimmungen des Selbst, des Körpers sowie der Emotionalität und nicht zuletzt der jeweils neu gesetzten Abgrenzung zur Umwelt ab. Die Beiträge in diesem Heft versammeln solche Verfahren der Immersion anhand von Phänomenen wie dem Affekt, der Musik, der Leiblichkeit, der Animation, dem kollektiven Gedenken oder der kinematographischen Projektion

Vertrauen in Roboter und dessen Beeinflussbarkeit durch sprachliches Framing

Collaborative robots (cobots) enable human-robot interactions in the workplace without safety fences. An appropriate level of trust by employees is critical to the success of these interactions. Anthropomorphic perceptions and fears of technological replacement affect trust formation. They can be influenced by linguistic framing, as this interdisciplinary empirical study shows