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We will happily be having sex with robots soon, according to scientists

Popularity of the machines has been rising as their realism continues to improve

Thursday 08 September 2016 08:33 BST
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A still from the film Ex Machina, in which an AI seduces a man
A still from the film Ex Machina, in which an AI seduces a man

We will happily be having sex with robots soon, according to scientists.

The "sexbots" could be better than humans in bed and we could be looking at human-robot marriages by the year 2050, experts have claimed. Popularity of the machines has been rising as their realism continues to improve and soon could replace human companionship altogether.

Joel Snell, an expert in robots from Kirkwood College in Iowa, said the machines could be programmed to each individual person’s requirements.

“Because they would be programmable, sexbots would meet each individual user’s needs,” Mr Snell told the Daily Star.

“Robotic sex may become addictive. Sexbots would always be available and could never say no, so addictions would be easy to feed,” he said.

The UK's favourite sex positions

According to an academic paper put forward by Ian Yeoman and Michelle Mars, by the year 2050, we should expect Amsterdam’s red light district to be all robots.

In their paper, Robots, men and sex tourism, Mr Yeoman and Ms Mars said: “In 2050, Amsterdam’s red light district will all be about android prostitutes who are clean of sexual transmitted infections (STIs).

“The city council will have direct control over android sex workers controlling prices, hours of operations and sexual services.”

Humans have been warned to be careful when using the robots as it could lead to isolation.

“One of the first impacts of something like sex robots would be to increase human isolation because once you try to tell people that they don't need other human beings any more, one of the consequences of that is more isolation,” Dr Kathleen Richardson, a senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University, told Sky News.

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