Cyrus North, failed by his $11,000 AI sex robot, questions rape culture

Can you rape an AI sex robot? This is the question we can ask ourselves by watching Youtubeur Cyrus North’s latest video, 725,000 subscribers at the counter. Published on November 30, 2022, it presents its latest acquisition: a sex doll which cost him nearly $11,000.

“Should an AI robot have the notion of consent? »

Though designed to be used for sex, she repeatedly refuses to have any with the content creator she jokes about being friend from this man-sized sex toy. Faced with palpable unease, the economics graduate questions himself philosophically:

“I realize the question that emerges from the video is: should an AI robot have the notion of consent? »

Many media have already asked the question, resulting in the answer that no, although the advances in artificial intelligence increasingly raise the question of the consciousness of its machines. Concept also noticed by the Youtuber:

“You need to have a conscience to be consenting: an awareness of the situation, of the other and of oneself. »

Keeping the rape fantasy?

Artificial intelligence gives this type of state-of-the-art sex doll a semblance of consciousness. This is what leads Cyrus North to say that its sex doll, who has renamed Charlotte, pretends not to agree. We allow ourselves to talk about pretending, because it is the primary function of this machine. It is this discrepancy between the purpose of this gigantic sex toy and what it verbalizes that creates a deep unease in the content creator who therefore has the impression of being a “forcer”. He also mentions at the end of the video Doctor of Philosophy, Bioethics and Ethics Robert Sparrow that he believes this this type of sex robot could fuel the fantasy of overriding consent. To put it another way, it can fuel the fantasy of rape.

Cyrus North touches on this fundamental problem without developing it: to what extent can artificially intelligent sex robots serve the logic of domination, or even the culture of rape? And thus, by extension, do they participate in their maintenance in real life? Because it is the dynamic that emerges in this video, a source of immense malaise.

Feminist content creator Amocide picks it up in a wire Chirping :

“What message does it send us to see a robot in our effigy, supposed to be in our image, only to be subjected to a complaint of consuming their body? It leaves us with the idea that we are sold to suffer the relationships of domination that we already suffer on a daily basis and that we will continue to suffer. Why don’t women be saved by creating humanoids in their image. Because it limits itself to reproducing a specific, unhealthy, violent relationship which, moreover, in video, necessarily echoes experienced relationships of domination.

We KNOW that it is we who are imitated, caricatured, bought, fantasized about. WE KNOW that it is thinking of us that Cyrus forces into an affair, we don’t particularly need to see this violence turned into an allegedly scientific entertainment experience.

(Little honorable mention for the “who wants his girlfriend to be insecure” at the beginning of the video then comes out with an “ah bah she really doesn’t give shit” when he compliments her and she says “I know”)

What will happen if it is something that becomes more democratic and one day the said robots break down? Do you think we will be spared the lack of this relationship of total domination that this technology will have created? »

Amocide concludes by asking to abolish the relationship that markets women’s bodies, rather than food ” this totally artificial need on the part of the technologies that allow it to be exercised more freely “:” such an object is not neutral, it actively connotes something “.

Eroticization of the prevailing consensus

And that something appears to be rape culture. Because if it may seem fictional that the artificial intelligence sex robot responds in a programmed way, oscillating between refusal and consent, it is the better to appear plausible, faithful to reality. But since it’s a sex doll, its owner can tell himself that he doesn’t have to respect his consent and use it like any sex toy without conscience. However, this maintains a vague relationship to consensus, the overcoming of which may therefore seem acceptable. Without jumping to the shortcut that we could easily confuse what we indulge in about robots with humans, we can still worry about this eroticization of the prevailing consensus.

Perhaps Cyrus North will address this fear in more depth in possible Part 2 of this haunting video that already has nearly 300,000 views.

Front page photo credit: Youtube screenshot.