Robot Whores

We all know it... in the end, automation is going to eat our jobs away.

Then, we will all starve to death, as there is no sign of our societies turning in any "socialist" direction.

And then, someone will find a new way to present things well, and the "Cut-Throat Capitlaism" that the readers of Forbes seems to be so fond of - because they are the capitalists in it - will go the way it went the late XIX century cut-throat capitalism -  with capitalists throats ripped by angry mobs that discovers that the right to private possession exists, as all rights, only as long as societies deems them necessary and worth of being respected.

Chances are, if you were a secretary before the 2008 crisis, your old job has long gone, replaced by two or three apps in your former chief's smart phone, and now you manage to make ends meet in some way.... maybe.

It is the nature of progress in our era; Even the fabled Chinese workers are replaced by robots, in China.

One of the lasts - or maybe not - jobs that will be automatized will be, ahem, prostitution.

This piece of mines is prompted by another one that  I read in The Register, some time ago, reporting the opinion of one Kathleen Richardson, Ph.D., about the need to ban robot whores, as their diffusion would make the situation of human whores even worse.

Of course, the gentle doctor tries to frame the issue along the usual lines of "Prostitution is based upon the ability of using another person as an object, and having objects posing as persons would make things worse".

Maybe she is right...

One could argue a much more direct cause of concern for prostitutes, should a robotic competition to them ever arise: if (when?) the robots were credible, whores would be - like it happened to typists, not so long ago - out of work, awfully fast.

In reality, the problem of prostitution, for society, is simply that it undermines one of the cardinal points on which it structured itself: to have SEX, males must perform above some standards defined by the community of females.

This, of course, is no human novelty at all - sixty million yeas before some ape took the divergent path that lead to humans, the Tyrannosaurus Rex male had to bust his ass to impress Tyrannosaurus females and have some sex.

If, by any chance, this limits to male access to sex is removed, males have little to no incentives to do anything.

We all know it... and it is simple to see these dynamics in action, in those contexts where a significant abundance of women makes easier - "cheaper" - for men to have sex.

They back off from commitment, from work or family, because - brutally said - it is not worth the effort.

In the long term, unless our technological development stalls (everything can happen, and the end of Gordon Moore's era migth be near) "robot whores" are going to appear, and make this the average pattern.

Of course, I think that they'll arrive after "robot truck drivers" (banally, trucks that drive themselves), "Robot taxis", "robotic warehouses", "robot nurses", "robot policemen" etc... so, the big question will likely be:

"Who the hell has the money to pay for their services, anyway?"

The answer will be , nobody.
 
Yes, if they will ever be built, probably these contraption will be banned.

But it would be nice, if the people that will push for the ban - starting with the ineffable Kathleen Richardson - admitted that the problem is not that "the 'bots teach males to treat women as object".

Much of the traditional ways of life did and still do the same, far more effectively - simply because it is functional to maximize chances of reproduction, which was fundamental for societies that had little medicine to keep in check infant mortality rates, and no automation to alleviate the need for a vast  workforce.

The fact that in our modern societies men are permitted the luxury of thinking about women as human beings (or even, to admit that they like other kind of human beings) is a side effect of the increasing levels of automation, a positive effect, whereas the abysmally low birthrate is a less positive one...

A society that, globally, does not feel the need for the replacement of its workforce  - most of which is already supernumerary - does not make much effort to have any new workforce born, leaving women exposed to a wide set of non-reproduction pressures. 

It is funny that the same political forces that are often at the core of establishing this pattern, for the economical interests of their patrons, then blame women as a category for simply acting like the kind of rational economic actor - in most cases, an idealization not dissimilar from the invisible pink unicorn - that those same patrons allegedly worship.


Nor the problem is that "The robots will make the condition of whores worse".

Nobody really cares about the prostitutes - they are women who broke the solidarity pact of their gender and allowed men sex for almost free, anyway - but every woman with a brain can see the menace, if the robots do a decent job at simulating a living person.

Robotic whores may arrive, one day.

They will effectively put out of business`most of the low strata of the "profession", those that effectively only sell little more than their body (often, in countries where prostitution is not a legal, legitimate profession, forced by criminal gangs).

This , in itself, would not be such a terrible outcome.

What is more worrying, for many , these machines could put out of business the whole low strata of WOMEN, those that had little more to offer, to men, than sex.

This will be the real reason why these robots will be banned, if they ever menace to become a widespread reality.

Some women will fear that, some day, men will say the same that I heard, a week ago, from a female friend of mines:

"Ever since I bought my Sybian, I do not feel the need for men - they are so underwhelming, in bed."


- Yep, mechanic gigolos are already stealing our chances; robot whores would just even the playfield.