Medical Ethicist Art Caplan is Head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center and the co-host of the Everyday Ethics podcast . Caplan joined Jim Braude and Margery Eagan on Boston Public Radio to discuss sex education, internet addiction, and sex robots.
An excerpt from the conversation:
Art: You didn’t ask me what we did on Every Ethics this week, but we actually did sex robots. I think they’re going to be there. I think you’re going to have a partner who is—if you want, you could have an artificial sex partner who would be preferable to your regular partner. They would do it better, and perhaps do things that your regular partner wouldn’t like. I think we’re headed into a kind of screen-driven, virtual reality, robotic tomorrow. We can worry about that and fret about that, the good news is, we won’t be there, so it doesn’t matter what our fretting is. The bad news is, if you came back, as some of our friends who want to freeze their heads, cryonically, I think they would be completely out of it! They wouldn’t know what’s going on!
Here’s my wisdom: The future...will be different.
Jim: That is really deep. But you just tried to gloss over the sex robots. Did you see the movie Her? Where he’s in love with his computer? Is that what you’re talking about, that kind of thing?
Art: Yeah! We do have sex toys now, right? Think of a sex doll, a robot, that’s really humanlike…
Jim: Oh my god.
Art: People might say well, I’m single, or I’m in prison…
Margery: Wait a minute—
Art: Or I’m in an institution, I need someone to come visit me…
Margery: Forget single or in prison! I think this could take a lot of pressure off a lot of marriages, Art. You know what I’m saying? All these over-40 guys with their Viagra—they’re all revved up and ready to go, and their wives are thinking, ‘I’ve done enough for my country by now, you go with your sex toy and leave me alone.’ This could be a good thing!
Art: People might also say well, I like a little variety, but instead of having every politician arrested for having an affair, now you can just have a little toy!
Jim: Oh, my god.
Margery: There’s the future, Jim. You’re going to miss it, though.
Jim: Let’s move on.
To hear more of Art Caplan’s interview with BPR, click on the audio link above.
