IDEA HOW BEEP IS YOUR LOVE? Love is mysterious territory for many. Particularly when we talk about love between a human and an artificial being. Prof. Alexiei Dingli writes.
Y
ou may raise an eyebrow
Piloting the technology are companies
here, but the truth is
like the new Virtual Reality (VR) porn
stranger than fiction.
startup Holodexxx that employs VR to
This year, a Japanese
give their clients a fully interactive and
man is celebrating a
customisable sex experience involving
decade of marriage to a video game
both real actors and avatars. The
character named Nene Anegasaki. In
avatars can be created either through
2017, a contemporary reincarnation
digital scans of real pornstars or they
of the Pygmalion character, a Chinese
can be entirely virtual characters.
Artificial Intelligence engineer, married a female android he built. So one might ask, what is the
IDEA
the boundaries of what is acceptable
prerequisite for a person to be
and what is not. It could be that some
attracted to another entity?
people might be attracted to a centaur, and they can now fulfill their desires
Prof. Alexiei Dingli
philosophers since the dawn of time and
with VR. But what if the attraction is
discovered a paedophile playground
I’ll try to answer it through association,
towards a little virtual child? Despite
called Wonderland, hidden inside a
starting with the most basic feature —
being illegal in our real-world society,
virtual world called Second Life.
their humanness. We are attracted to
cases of abuse still occur. The same
beings that exhibit human properties.
goes for online worlds where it is
power of robots to replicate the feel
Sometimes, this is a matter of
unfortunately easier for people to
of a real person. Barcelona-based sex
appearance. Photorealistic avatars have
have these sorts of encounters.
doll company LumiDoll is opening
come a long way in today’s day and age.
In 1998, Sky News investigators
brothels across the continent, offering
This question has taunted
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Since avatars can be made to specification, we start approaching
Even brothels are discovering the