Turns out the prospect of sex with robots might not actually be as near as initially expected, as the expert who made the original prediction has clarified their thoughts in response to media 'fabrication'.
As long as robots have been in the popular consensus there's always been adjacent ideas of intercourse, from the straight up prospect of sex with androids presented in something like Westworld, to the more AI-focused intimacy in films like Her.
What has helped accelerate public conversation surrounding these ideas however is a rather bold prediction from Dr. Ian Pearson in 2016, reported initially by The Sun.
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Dr. Pearson's prediction, made via Bondara which can be viewed on the Internet Archive, positions 2025 as a key date for the future of robotic intimacy, proposing many key questions on the subject.
"When are we all going to be having virtual reality sex? Could we fall in love with robots in the future? What is this all going to mean for our relationships?" These are just some of the questions hypothesized by Dr. Pearson in his project.
However, what many have focused on is the seemingly incorrect prediction that women especially would be having sex with robots more than men by 2025, which has been spread wildly on social media and through media channels, as per Indy 100.
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Unfortunately for Dr. Pearson, this is quite different to the prediction he actually made, which positions 2025 instead as the earliest possible point of this trend appearing.
His original prediction was as follows:
"While some people will enthusiastically embrace relationship-free robot sex as soon as they can afford one, as early as 2025, it won't have much chance of overtaking sex with humans overall until 2025."
Quite wide of the mark then.
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He blames this misinterpretation on articles with 'misleading' headlines that focus primarily on the earliest date, telling Indy100 that the difference between his own prediction and what's being reported is "not the same at all, but that doesn't get as many clicks, I guess."
It's certainly worth considering the viability of Dr. Pearson's prediction within the current technological landscape though, especially in relation to AI advancements.
We already have plenty of stories of people 'creating' their own AI boyfriends or romantic partners, and tragically one teenage took his life after forming a relationship with an AI chatbot.
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How out of the realm of possibility is it then that robot sex could be sooner than anticipated? Perhaps 2050 will end up being too conservative of an estimation.