Child Sex Robots Are The Prior Concern Of This Researcher

A law professor from the University of Minnesota published an essay on The Conversation that said sexbots have created many complicated issues in both social and lawful fields. This professor is Francis Shen, who showed his dissatisfaction and discomfort when he saw the designers of sexbots produce shapes that look like children.

Francis Shen said that a robot with a child-like shape is still a robot, not a human; however, it is similar to child pornography in the virtual world, sexbot owners won't need any real children to perform any depraved behaviours.

He said:

There have been laws enacted to prohibit the operation of child sex robots, Shen said. A law called CREEPER (the Curbing Realistic Exploitative Electronics Pedophilic Robots Act) was officially adopted in 2018 in order to prevent the negative effects of child sexual robots on humans.

This bill is made when the story of child sexual robots is not really widespread, but they think this will be a possible trend in the future. Shen analyzed that this is an example of how legal rules are ready to go ahead and build regulations for sexbot technology before society changes social norms and hinders juridical.

Moreover, the boundaries between ordinary robots and sex robots are becoming increasingly blurry and unclear. For example, "Mark 1" is often labelled as a sex robot, but the developer said they also wanted these robots to complete other tasks such as cooking for children or helping the elderly.

People can certainly control sexual acts and non-sex acts in different contexts. But can that happen to robots? Shen also wonders how can we control and define a robot that can play with children during the day and switch adult mode at night?