Sex and Artificial Intelligence: Will Computers Satisfy Our Fantasies?

Jenna Owsianik
4 Min Read

Smart technologies could decode and give you what you want in the bedroom. 

Do you ever wish you could have all your sexual needs met, without having to ask? That someone could just read your mind, and know all the sexiest moves that would just make your clock tick?

As artificial intelligence develops and becomes increasingly capable of learning new things (as we’ve seen with Google’s Deep Dream), it stands to reason this capacity will also extend to sex.

In fact, Abyss Creations, the makers of the world famous RealDoll, has already launched itself on this endeavour with Realbotix—a talking robotic head for a sex doll with  the illusion of sentience. It’s expected to hit the market in two years.

Beyond the corporeal form, AI and robotics expert David Levy is developing Erotic Chatbots Ltd. The company’s aim is to create a range of virtual chat partners able to flirt and have sexy conversations.

Also imagining a future when artificial intelligence can decipher and meet human desires is futurist Scott O’Brien. At our Future of Sex Meetup in Sydney last year, he predicted that not only will computers be able to figure out our fantasies, “we’ll want it, we’ll crave it, we’ll expect it.”

Watch the above video to learn more about digital mind reading for sex, and for some comedic anecdotes from the evening. We’ve also provided the video transcript below.

“We’ve accepted different races, different languages, different cultures. Can we accept different definitions of sex as well? That’s one thing, which makes it hard to make this a universal framework. But the other thing, again I draw upon my single-sex high school days, where I was introduced to Mrs. Palmer and her five lovely daughters. And it might be a little graphic, but let’s be real here, right? So the thing is there’s a psychological battle, in a way, going on in masturbation. Of course, there’s the social stigma, but also, there’s in the sense without source. This is kind of like another person, right? (referring to his hand)

“And what do you know, they’ve got this intelligence to make me feel things I want to feel. And it’s interesting in our relationships as we become adults. We’re really wanting our partners to read our minds, and finally, you could just, ‘Touch here?’ Or say the right thing at the right time, and then it’ll just bring me over the edge, you know, and just be wonderful.

“But then when we go to Gmail or Facebook, and we’ve been thinking something during the day, or we had a conversation with someone two days ago, then all of a sudden, in the right-hand column, in the ads, it’s there. But we never entered it on our computer. And it’s reading our mind. That’s freaky.

“So when it becomes digital, this kind of like reading of the mind, there is kind of a different pattern as to when it’s coming from people. It’s so interesting to compare when that mind-reading is coming from a person compared to the digital mind reading. I think there’s going to be a huge flip shortly where we’ll want it, we’ll crave it, we’ll expect it.”

Featured image source: Johan Bichel Lindegaard

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Jenna Owsianik is a Canadian journalist and sex tech expert. From 2014 to 2022 she was Editor-in-Chief of FutureofSex.net, the world’s leading publication on how technology is changing human sexuality, today and tomorrow. Her expertise covers state-of-the-art sex technologies and the major fields driving innovations in intimacy: robotics, virtual reality, remote sex (teledildonics), immersive adult entertainment, human augmentation, virtual sex, and sexual health. A trained journalist with a Masters of Journalism from The University of British Columbia, Jenna’s reporting has appeared on Futurism.com, Al Jazeera English, CTV British Columbia online, CBS Sunday Morning, CBS 60 Minutes, Global News, and CKNW Radio in Canada and the United States. As a sex tech industry consultant, she is especially passionate about helping companies deliver accessible services and products to people with disabilities and other underserved communities. Jenna also runs the sites SexforEveryBody.com, a sex-positive, body-positive online magazine that promotes inclusive sex education; and DisabledSexGuide.com, an adult resource on sex, disability, and erotica. In 2013, Jenna won two Canadian Online Publishing Awards for her work on The Pain Project, a multimedia site on global access to palliative care. She won second place at the 2011 Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism’s Public Health category for her participation in the documentary Freedom From Pain. Jenna has an Honors BA in Women’s Studies and Feminist Research as well as a French minor from The University of Western Ontario. She spent a year studying at L’Université Lumière Lyon 2 in Lyon, France.
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