First: The Feminists (a polemic)

Noteworthy by their absence are the sex-positive views of men. Instead we are treated to a stream of feminists who one way or another have bought into the idea that that men are exploiting women, objectifying women and raping/abusing women, while denying men are exploited through their sex drive and search for extrinsic value. Nowhere is it admitted that sex-bots, like gay sex, represent a threat to the putative 'pussy cartel'.

The long game seems to be that by creating a false equivalence between women and sex robots, feminists seek to take control of the technology to make it more 'inclusive' and less 'heteronormative', to increase 'diversity' and to move the sex robots away from an anthropomorphic model to something more 'abstract'.

Basically to stop sex robots from being sexy.

That last statement is too cruel, there were some good points made to and around the non-anthropomorphic approach. More on that later.

There's an elephant in the room, Doctor Kathleen Richardson, mentioned but never shown, is remarkable in her unattractiveness (my straw poll of presumably heterosexual men rated her as a 'generous 3').

A cynic would say such an unattractive woman would naturally want to limit men's access to alternatives to her. Thus her ethical stance, anti-prostitution and anti-sexbot, looks like nothing more than bare faced self-interest.

There is a defining lack of male views on the morals and ethics involved, and it looks like men are not going to be asked what they want to see. There was no of recognition of sexual dimorphism, or that the dimorphic features tend to be the sexy features.

There are exceptions to this, Lynne Hall and Trudy Barker from their respective positions are actually sex positive, porn positive, and sex is fun positive. Their talks covered the DIY world of the fetish community from 1991 to date, and a half-way decent discussion of porn and wanking.

Second: The Makers

Once we move away from the western feminists we start to hit some interesting stuff. People who are actually developing stuff.

While fucking/butt machines have been around for a long time, they are actually mimicking the easiest and most mechanical part of sex, the thrusting. More complex intimacies, such as kissing, have never been replicated.

Two technologies are under development for this, the Kissenger and the Teletongue were demonstrated, along with discussions about the importance of decent and, for the teletongue, the slurping and wetness noises.

From the University of Valencia we got ROMOT (RObotic MOvie Theatre), with loads of haptic interfaces, fans, scents and 3D glasses integrated into a unified experience. The developer of this system pointed out that ROMOT could be considered a robot that surrounds the users. She noted that even with low grade graphics the environment gets incredibly immersive incredibly fast.

A discussion evolved around whether people would actually use it for porn, if surrounded by strangers. And the conclusion was that they would. XXX cinemas are nothing new.

Third: Motivators

There were no real surprises here. Nearly half of men would consider using a sexbot. The only lead indicator was the tendency to anthropomorphise, the lead contraindication was negative attitudes to robots.

Elsewhere we had the studies that showed 'embodiment' is a key feature. A mobile phone with a small, elf like soft toy attached, was found to improve trust and intimacy between people.

On humanoid robots people got aroused touching taboo regions.

And this lead me too two contradictory end points. For a 'love' relationship with a robot or AI you will need to keep the human form, and keep to a human form that is sexy and appealing.

For a sensation based sexbot, you can leave the human for out. A robotic bed that can spoon or hug or restrain does not seem to be such a leap.

Around the edges of this was a whole lot of chat about AIs learning to have sex, exchanging lessons, and generally being a better fuck that anything either a man or a woman could perform.

His is important because men are constantly being accused of undermining women, and of trying to get rid of women. Sexbots already have objectors (noted above). Once this tech takes off, this and the male pill could easily revolutionise gender politics as never before.

General conclusions:

if you want the sexbots to be fun for men, men will have to own the space that services men. Men will have to start making and building these things to please men.

There is very little public research being done anywhere, and in some countries you will be locked up by the police.

VR was hardly touched as a subject. But completely customisable VR experiences (Rule 34 was brought up, a lot) surely will be with us sooner.

The cases where funding might be available are all focussed on the disabled. Cases were not made, for example, to reduce prison rapes, or help true forced loneliness types.

There was actually an openly M(H)RA person there. I didn't speak to him.