IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2016 - 47

might imagine, but perhaps not for the reasons you
would think. Today philosophers of technology, technologists, and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are proposing
that anthropomorphic robots should have rights. These
elements posit that we are on the threshold of a new
dawn of human-machine equivalence [13], [32], [46],
[55]. Moreover, some suggest that protecting anthropomorphic robots is a pathway to promoting human empathy, further confusing the issue of what is a machine
[13]. Gunkel [55] furthers these perspectives by claiming
that the exclusionary nature of human beings (for example women or people of color) demonstrates that the
moral status of others is varied across time and space.
He writes,
The vindication of the rights of machines, therefore, is not simply a matter of extending moral
consideration to one more historically excluded
other. The question concerning the "rights of
machines" makes a fundamental claim on ethics,
requiring us to rethink the system of moral considerability all the way down [55, p. 53].
There are even others in the field of robotics who
claim that intimate attachments can be established
between humans and machines in the form of robots
[30]. There are others who are adamant that robots/
machines are just things, and that they should be our
"slaves" [7].
In this article I ask how a discussion about artificial
intelligence (AI) and robots became fused with a discussion of slavery, rights, and objects (animate and inanimate), with these objects taking on the role of persons.
These themes are brought together through a discussion of sex robots.

Pygmalion and Buying Sex
Anthropology, as the study of human cultures, explores
how humans relate to each other, and how humans produce artefacts and engage with their material environments. The field of anthropolog y, a long w ith
co-connected disciplines of folklore, myth, and religion,
has a well-developed literature on the topics of anthropomorphism and animism [19], [22].
Anthropomorphism is attributing humanlike characteristics to nonhuman animals and things, while animism is attributing life to the inanimate. While
anthropomorphism and animism are topics associated
with non-scientific and indigenous cultures, these
anthropological themes, recurring through different cultures across space and time, are given new forms of
expression in relation to artificial intelligence (AI) and
robotics [43]. "Technological" animists are differentiated from indigenous animists in that technological
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animists believe (through technology) that they can
make the fantasy "come true," i.e., that the inanimate
object can become real, even alive.
The desire to animate the inanimate, or attribute
anthropomorphic qualities to nonhumans, is well documented, but technology has replaced magic as the philosopher's stone to create life from the inanimate and
lifeless. This is further echoed in texts that provide context for making the inanimate, animate. Take the recent
publication of Capurro ((9); See also The Quest for Roboethics. A Survey) that cites many creation myths, including the medieval Jewish story of the golem by Jada Lowe,
the Japanese Bunrakau tradition of puppetry, Genesis,
automata, and Rossum's Universal Robots (RUR). Capurro draws on Aristotle's famous text Politics [2] and refers
to the passage [2, 1253b23], where Aristotle describes
slaves as "a living tool," as well as to the desire animate
the inanimate. Capurro concludes that if the inanimate
were animate, there would be no need for slaves.

The desire to animate the inanimate,
or attribute anthropomorphic qualities
to nonhumans, is well documented.

Let me introduce and emphasize the female as creator. Through the act of producing children, a woman is
creating actual life, a point that is often absent from
these genealogical surveys of creation through time.
I will pick up the mantel of these writers by introducing
the myth of Pygmalion to discuss sex robots. Pygmalion was popularized by the Roman poet Ovid in his
epic poem, Metamorphoses [39]. Pygmalion grew tired
of local prostitutes and decided to sculpt in "snowwhite ivory" a woman entirely of his own creation [27].
The statue comes to life. In readings of this story, Pygmalion represents another tale in this long lineage of
stories about male animation of the inanimate. But
what I want to suggest is that Pygmalion is not a story
about love, reciprocity, or empathy, but reflects a nonreciprocal encounter that underscores the imagination,
promotion, and development of sex robots, inspired by
power and coercion over women and girls. The sex
robot is inspired by a non-empathetic form of encounter that is manifest in the sex trade, a gendered practice
of power where males (80% of the buyers of sex are
male), buy sex from women and girls [16]. Men and
male children are also prostituted, females make up a
small proportion of the buyers of sex, and fortunately

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