Bring on the Interactive Sex Robots
Watch parties, sex robots, and the externalized self
Last week while I was finishing up my COVID quarantine, my partner and I used the watch party feature to binge a series together (Seasons 1 and 2 of Britannia, if you are interested). I was downstairs in my COVID zone with our dog and they were upstairs, snuggled in with the cat. We discovered that we like the watch party because of the chat feature, which allows us to have a running commentary back and forth. This chat would be distracting in person, but it actually enhanced our watching experience. I wondered if we might want to continue watch parties after the quarantine was over. Had we stumbled on a superior way to watch TV together? One that was mediated by a screen and a program.
I love coincidences. A couple days later I listened to an Ezra Klein Show podcast with guest Annie Murphy Paul speaking on her book about the “Extended Mind,” and I instantly thought about our watch party. I thought about how we use our mind extenders to enhance connections between humans. Then the next day I saw a headline about how sex robots may soon be better than the real thing. Of course, my mind put all three together, and now I am wondering about whether the next generation of sex robots could actually work with us to enhance our relationships.
