"Wake me up when robot wives are cheap and effective" (Jasper from the Simpsons)
Wake up Jasper!
The big story at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) wasn’t new Droid phones or 3D TVs. The big splash in Las Vegas happened next to CES where a sex robot last week”Roxxxy TrueCompanion” made her debut.
And that’s only a slight exaggeration: As of Monday night, Roxxxy garnered 427 stories on Google News to 527 for the Google Nexus phone also introduced last week.
credit: PCMag.com
Let’s face it: Roxxxy, at least as a story, has mondo sex appeal, but it was her artificial intelligence shaping five different personalities that grabbed the headlines. “After the fact (namely, sex), you want to be able to talk to them,” says someone who sounds like a company spokesman in the video below. “The sexual part is really a minor part. The companionship [and] relationship [are] the main part. After the fact, you want to be able to talk to them.”
After the fact!? Puhleez! Word is she goes on sale this week from TrueCompanion.com and only cost $7,000-$9,000. Did i just write that?
Roxxxy’s personalities are Mature Martha who says she works as a bond trader for Cantor Fitzgerald; S&M Susan, Young version, Frigid Farah (she’s a CF bond trader, too - go figure) and apparently a fifth one that either did not show up in the video or is the one at the end with a gender issue. Her voices sound pretty fake with hesitation and mispronunciation in the soft porn dialog complete with a weird 9/11 angle - not much of a turn on, IMO.
TrueCompanion.com’s web site has precious little public information about Roxxxy. If you want more information, you must submit name, e-mail address and and phone number. I declined.
From what I could piece together from the video and tons of media coverage, 5 foot 7 and 120-pound Roxxxy is anatomically correct with lifelike skin, but from the photos, she looks only marginally more lifelike than a blow-up doll. She’s a “downloadable wanton WIFI women can also talk, listen and have an orgasm,” according to one story.
Doug Hines, Roxxxy’s lead engineer, explains his creation thusly:
“Designing a robot sex doll involves multiple disciplines. We have many electrical engineers, computer science experts, artists, beauty and makeup professionals as well as robotic engineers all working together to provide you with your most life like sex robot which can interact as well as ‘play’ with you. She will be able to talk, listen, carry on a conversation, feel your touch and be your true friend. She can also have an orgasm when you touch her! (the last two sentences are web site boilerplate).”
Roxxxy made her debut at Adult Entertainment Expo which ran concurrently with CES in Las Vegas. It’s always been said that many advances in the electronics industry spring out of adult entertainment. Indeed, porn sites were among the first to embrace web site videos and DVDs. When I was editor-in-chief of the late Electronic Business magazine, reporter Bill Roberts in 2006 wrote a great feature on that trend. Unfortunately, I can only find an online vestige of it.
Former colleague of mine Lance Ulanoff of PCMag.com attended Saturday’s TrueCompanion.com press conference and put it this way: “This sort of, um, device, has likely been atop the wishlist of many of the world’s geeks, for a very long time.”
Even if they get more lifelike and intelligent they get, sex bots will be a specialty item way out of the mainstream. Although, if Apple designed one…hmmmm.
For now, I surmise the market will be geeks who can’t get a date, misogynists and porn addicts. And who’s to say that Ronald the sex robot won’t show up next? It’s a Brave New World.
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