John Danaher, a Keele University law school lecturer with an interest in the ways human life may be enhanced by robots and the ethics problems that stem from that,
published a paper that examines whether sex work might one day be dominated by robots rather than human sex workers.
He also offers this easily understood summary of it for the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies.
The paper lays out two contrasting hypotheses: one in which robots dominate the sex industry; and another in which robot use actually leads to an increase in human sex work.
In both scenarios, Danaher argues, a “basic income” policy would be helpful — either to fund newly unemployed prostitutes or to provide an alternative to people who have lost their jobs to robots so they don’t end up as prostitutes. “Basic income” is an idea that economists have toyed with for years. It’s the notion that the majority of government welfare payments ought to be abolished in favor of a single, unconditional cash payment that everyone gets regardless of their employment status.
So, yes, he’s literally arguing that in the future, sex robots may finally make the case for a basic income scheme:
The displacement hypothesis says sex robots will eventually push human sex workers out of a job. It’s served by two other ideas called “the transference thesis” and “the advantages thesis.” The transference thesis argues that people will successfully be able to project their sexual desires onto robots, or as Danaher puts it, “the fact that there is demand for the former suggests that there will also be demand for the latter.”
The second leg of the displacement hypothesis — the advantages thesis — simply suggests that robots designed for sex work will have advantages over human sex workers. For example, sex robot manufacture is legal in many countries where prostitution is illegal. There are also ethics and health advantages, as sex trafficking and objectification need not be a concern for robots. And as long as sanitation is maintained, STDs would largely not be a concern.
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