Are sex robots simply high-end sex toys? Or might they serve a grander therapeutic purpose, helping to channel or curb bad behaviors — rape or pedophilia, for example — that might otherwise be inflicted upon real people?
A pair of British researchers decided to try and answer those questions but faced a big roadblock: A lack of evidence.
“We found a number of health claims were being made, which we analyzed,” explained study co-author Chantal Cox-George. She’s an academic foundation doctor at St. George’s University Hospitals with the NHS Foundation Trust in London. “That sexbots might help safe sex, be therapeutic for people with sex or companionship problems, and might reduce sexual abuse of children.”
But in the end, “we were unable to find any empirical evidence in the medical literature to support or refute any of these,” she said.
Hal is a medical robot that is used by medical students to learn to diagnose and treat illness before interacting with real patients. It has all of the needed human treats and features like: – crying, bleeding and more. While working with it nurses and medical students actually make human connections with him even when the know that it is not a real human. So, is this operations made on Hal ethical?
Parents’ and teens’ overall assessment of the role of cell phones in their lives
Parents and teens have quite similar overall attitudes about the role of cell phones in their lives, though teens are more likely to salute the upside of constant connectivity and bemoan the downside.
Perpetual availability breeds safety – or at least safer feelings — and the capacity to reach others anywhere, any time has some social payoffs. Moreover, the cell phone itself can be a “companion” for many teens when they are bored and want to entertain themselves.
For many cell phone owners, safety is a primary benefit. Fully 98% of parents agree with the statement: “A major reason my child has a cell phone is so we can be in touch no matter where he/she is.” Every African-American parent in our survey whose teenage child has a cell phone agreed with this assertion, as did 98% of white parents and 95% of Hispanic parents.
The TV show legacies is a spin off of the show “The Originals” which is also a spin off for the worldwide famous supernatural show “The Vampire Diaries”. Legacies talks about the Salvatore school and the supernatural creatures there from vampires, werewolves and witches. However, legacies widen the circle of supernatural and shows more monsters through episodes of season one.
Those who will see the show and do not want spoilers, it is better not to read this post. Since the beginning of the show the character “Landon” which was actually thought to be a human, has attracted huge attention for its real identity and if he is supernatural. Then, we find in the last two episodes of the show that he is a son of a Gollum!!! As his half brother states that a millennial ago terrifying monsters existed and supernatural which have the abilities to wanted to stop this monsters and get rid of them. That’s why something called Triad, which included a werewolf, a witch and a vampire occurred and they created a gollum that can eat these monsters and consume them. They called it “The eater of the dark”. It was more powerful than what they have ever expected. Without getting in details, when the Gollum got more dangerous for the people who created it, they decided to get rid of it. We find in the final episode that the Gollum was transformed into a hole called malivor which consumes supernaturals or even humans and erase them from everybody’s memories. At the end we find that there was only one solution to stop the malivore. As the people who created him, made a solution to also destroy it which is if the tribrid fall in the malivore. The tribrid is the main character of the show “Hope” daughter of the original “Klaus Mikaelson”. The season ends with Hope jumping into the malivore, then it is destroyed and we see all the other characters forgetting Hope as if she never existed.
This actually shows how the creators of a monster are the only people who can eventually destroy it.
On the 10th of May, I was very excited as my favorite Kpop solo artist Kim Taeyeon released her new Japanese title track (Voice). As expected it was worth listening. However, this music video was different. During the mv we see different versions of Taeyeon disappearing and then appearing from other places. Then, suddenly we see Taeyeon as a robot between a huge number of wires. Ignore the Photoshop and the editing work of the video as her head is very small for the robot body actually. However, this was very interesting as we never saw such thing in Taeyeon’s previous releases, as nearly all her releases are very emotional and full of feelings. I thought why this was this different and why they show her as a robot. It is not a Korean song but Japanese, that’s why I thought that they may have produced this video in this way to go well with the Japanese market.
Taeyeon in the music video
English translation of the chorus: –
All the voices in my heart Your lingering voice echoes again and again Where are you now? You’re always in my heart Your voice whispers in my heart Am I still depending on you?
Are You Human Too? is a sci-fi melodrama about a robot (Seo Kang Joon) that is brought in to impersonate a chaebol heir who is in a coma during a corporate power struggle. He develops a close bond with his bodyguard (Gong Seung Yeon) as he learns about humans and discovers who he is.
Seo Kang Joon plays dual roles as the the human Nam Shin and the robot Nam Shin III. Human Nam Shin was taken from his mom when he was young and was raised by his rich and greedy family. And this resulted in him being a pretty selfish and hot tempered man. But an accident lands him in a coma which jeopardizes his position as well his entire life.
This picture shows how he looks exactly like a human
Nam Shin III was made to fill a hole in his mom’s heart for her real son. And he is such a kind and lovable robot who seriously likes his mom and wants to please her. He also wants to protect humans and has a habit of hugging them when they cry. So when he is directed to impersonate human Nam Shin, he jumps right in and does what he can to protect human Nam Shin’s life. This shows how he is very grateful to his creators and trying his best to help them.
Look how he is smiling
I did not watch the drama yet, that is why I did not read a lot of spoilers about how it is going. However, I am very excited to watch it in the holiday as it nearly covers all the topics that we talked about in the course. I want to know how the writers will develop Shin III’ character and how he will love human So Bong. The drama actually shows how a robot can have what we call “robot feelings” which make him closer to the people surrounding him. I am excited also to know how the mother really feel about Shin III and if she really loves him like her real son.
Shin’s mother and the robotics engineer that created Shin III
This is the link of the TED Talk I used for my elevator pitch for anyone who is interested to watch it.
The first five minutes he talks about how people in our days fear of technology and have the belief of machines replacing humans. He discusses the real reasons behind this in his own opinion. Then in the rest of the talk he talks about how people should be their real selves which I think will help people stop being isolated from the real world and will prove their uniqueness in the society and prove that they cannot be replaceable by artificial intelligence. That is why we should not fear technology we should fear ourselves.
The movie we watched the last class showed how a woman wanted to create a Golem to protect her village but then it appears that her creating a Golem was to fulfill her son’s emptiness. She did not want to give birth to another child as she was afraid of losing him too, that’s why she was really happy after realizing that the Golem she created cannot die which gave her feeling of relief that he will not leave her like her child(man) did.
During watching the movie, there was a point that I observed and wondered about. It was clear how the woman was controlled by the golem in the second half of the movie and that they were connected to each other and that they feel the some physical pain. However, then I realized that the Golem felt feelings other than the physical feelings for her. When The woman saw her husband at her neighbor’s house, she became very upset that she was thinking of killing her but then she gave up this thought. But we then see that the Golem felt her heart pain and goes and kill the woman for revenge to the woman who created him. Also we see this repeating when the woman and her husband are having dinner, while Golem was giving the uncomfortable looks which seemed to me like jealousy. That raised a question in my mind which is if Golem actually had human feelings and emotions like us rather than being just a creature or a machine for protection.
We saw how the old woman advised her to kill the Golem by pulling the paper from his mouth and at last after the Golem got out of control and the woman saw what a monster he had become, she decides to pull the paper and kill him no matter how much she loved him. Which shows how the creator was the only one who had control and ability to destroy his own creation. This situation somehow supported my own belief, as I personally believe that there is no creation of man which cannot be killed and if the creation no longer benefit the creator, the creator can easily stop it. That’s why I think that the thought of machines or robots conquering the world is some kind of myth.
1099 Cyborgs, Avatars, and Everyday life 2019 