Yes! Dear Reader, I have finally lost it! There will be many after reading this blog-post who will be convinced that I have gone completely mad!
The montage image heading up today’s post is self explanatory: In the main body we have a BBC technician with a remote controller and a Dalek. For the very few readers who do not know what a Dalek is herewith the Wikipedia page on the topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalek
The inset image will be familiar to we Brits over a certain age! The painting is of course “Chinese Girl” aka “The Green Lady” that as a mass produced print was to be found on the walls of so many British homes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Girl).
The homes in question were the modest homes of many middle and working class people. Not many prints were or are to be found on the walls of the upper classes. It is extremely unlikely that the print will be in the possession of the Right Honourable Jacob Rees-Mogg , PC, currently Minister of State for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency and the Member for North East Somerset.
In class conscious Britain, having “Chinese Girl”/“The Green Lady” on one’s living room wall relegates you socially to one of the lower orders! Not that Jacob Rees-Mogg would ever look disdainfully on anyone owning such a print! You see, Jacob Rees-Mogg is a genuine member of the upper set and does not look down upon those of his constituents who are part of the “lower orders”!
No, to find politicians who look down disdainfully on their constituents one must look to those virtue signalling Woke narcissists currently occupying the opposition benches! You see those of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s constituents who drive white vans, fly the English flag on 23rd April each year and can be found displaying the emblems of the football team they support from their bedroom windows are not looked down upon by him. No! For that, look to the Labour benches!
So, what has this to do with the Daleks? I hear you ask!
Well, you see, to be a really effective politician you have to like people!
And THAT is virtue signalling Woke narcissist’s problem! They like people who buy into their own prejudices! Basically, these people do not like most of their fellow human beings!
This Dear Reader is a problem! A very, very big problem!
That very rich man Elon Musk may talk a lot of nonsense about CO2 and colonising the Planet Mars, but he does talk sense upon other subjects. Such as the world potentially facing a demographic crisis. The following YouTube video is most informative: https://youtu.be/q0oaE9LLQN8 NB: The content runs for 5 minutes and 40 seconds. The final 53 seconds is a commercial.
The Ameca robot produced by Engineered Arts Limited, E1-E3 Church View Business Park, Bickland Water Rd, Falmouth TR11 4FZ is a fine example of the current “state of the art”: https://youtu.be/RCi3dib4u4c
Whilst the Ameca robot is highly expressive, it is not very manoeuvrable. The Atlas robot manufactured by Boston Dynamics (https://www.bostondynamics.com/) of 78 4th Avenue Waltham, MA 02451 USA however is a veritable gymnast as this YouTube video shows: https://youtu.be/HUJp8xQX1f0
Making a robot that has the expressiveness of the Ameca and the agility of the Atlas but contained in something of the appearance of the sex-dolls supplied by such as Abyss Creations in the USA is something that is technically not possible at this time and will not be for some time to come.
The technological limitation is something with which Mr Musk is extremely familiar with, being the manufacturer of battery powered motor cars!
You see the road vehicles that are described as “electric cars” are described differently to other battery powered electrical products sold to members of the public. Before I retired, I ran a business selling clocks and watches to the public. The clocks were battery powered. Clocks that were not powered by batteries were described as either “mains powered” of “electric clocks” the latter term has steadily become less common. Of course, electric road vehicles have been around for a long time. Having been born and brought up in Leeds in the West Riding of Yorkshire, I was familiar with Bradford’s “trolley buses”. Wikipedia has an informative article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_Bradford
Being born in the 1950s and having doorstep milk deliveries I was also familiar with the “milk float”: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk_float
The trolley bus and the milk float illustrate the problem electric road vehicles have! Delivery of power! The trolley bus used cable power and the milk float used battery power with the predictable consequences for each! The trolley bus was limited to where it could go whilst the milk float was limited in range and speed!
The manufacturers of human-like robots will face the same choice! The problem for them is that it is extraordinarily unlikely that scientists will ever be able to create a battery that has the necessary compactness and lightness to provide the power necessary for a robot that combines the features of the Ameca and Atlas robots in the size and form of the sex dolls supplied by Abyss Creations for instance.
The problem is illustrated in the image below:
On the left we have a standard grey 10mm twin & earth cooker cable. On the right we have a ubiquitous mobile phone charger. If one was so stupid to try and power a domestic electric oven with a cable as thin as that found on the phone charger the insulation would burn and the copper would melt!
To provide a humanoid robot with “in-house” manoeuvrability and functionality one would have to be able to power it with a cable as thin and as flexible as the phone charger with the power carrying capacity of the cooker cable! That is NOT going to happen any time soon! However, WHEN it eventually does happen, people such as Kathleen Richardson, Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at De Montfort University in Leicester is going to be a busy woman!
GOTO: https://campaignagainstsexrobots.org/
You see, notwithstanding Ms Richardson’s feminist outrage, humanoid robots are coming and NOT for sexual purposes but to replace the human beings that have NOT been born in the rich countries who do NOT want to find their reduced populations dwarfed by humans of a different background.
Of course Ms Richardson will likely suggest (demand/insist upon) that the humanoid robots do not possess any imitation sexual organs. Doubtless she will go on to suggest (demand/insist upon) that that the humanoid robots possess an ethnic neutral and gender neutral appearance. However I anticipate a demand for a human like appearance and a definite gender. I think the law makers and regulators will make a compromise: human like robots should not possess any imitation sexual organs. This would be a simple and straightforward step as all manufactured products legally sold in the UK have by law to conform to a certain set of standards.
The problem for Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners is that their laudable intentions (in her case, stopping prostitution) will not only fail, but will actually be counter productive, with her efforts making the situation worse (for exploited women) and not better!
You see, Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners make the same mistake so many other campaigners have done on different issues in different times. One of the most egregious examples was “Prohibition” in the USA in the early part of the twentieth century. This was a hugely counter productive change that made the situation far far worse than it had been before. Not only that, but it’s negative effects still plague the USA today a full century after it’s introduction. The USA still has a level of organised crime and corruption that it would not have had had this ruinous policy not been introduced!
Many readers will be of the opinion that Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners represent something new. They don’t! The focus of their campaign may differ but their psychology is much the same as those who came before.
There is you see, a puritanical seam running through British and US societies. Although they do not resemble them, Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners along with many of the “PC Brigade” are essentially the Puritans of the 21st Century!
The problem with these Puritans (as it was with their predecessors of the 17th Century and the early 20th Century [the “Prohibitionists”]) is that no evidence however thorough and well documented will shift these people from their fixed and firmly held opinions. I have never met Ms Richardson, but I would suspect that the woman does not really have any opinions other than those that are fixed and firmly held!
The depressing FACT of the matter is this: That WHEN (it is no longer “if”) humanoid robots that meet some of the performance levels and possess some of the capabilities imagined in Channel Four’s “Humans” Sc-Fi series are developed, legalising brothels that utilise suitably modified “androids” (with imitation and pseudo functioning genitalia) will be the one thing that finally could help make an effective contribution to the campaign to rid the world of prostitution.
Should the provision of such sexualised androids be criminalised, there will no no sane criminal organisation (in the UK) that will risk breaking this particular law!
Why?
Because of the provisions of the Proceeds of Crime Act, 2003. They are draconian in the extreme and since such androids will be expensive, they would represent a significant capital investment. Any organisation found to be in breach of the law will have all it’s assets confiscated (including the androids).
The effect of this of course is obvious!
The criminals will continue to do what they have long done: use human beings!
Therefore the message to Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners is clear: Far from opposing “sex robots” she should be proposing such items in order to counter the use of human females.
She and her colleagues won’t of course!
It goes against their puritanical mindsets!
Of course, when humanoid robots possessing the appearance of human females DO appear, Ms Richardson and her fellow campaigners will doubtless insist of changes!
An obvious one is that all “androids” (manufactured/imported into) the UK should possess non human skin colours! Hence the “Green Lady” cometh!
Of course, not withstanding the absence of imitation genitalia, Ms Richardson will still be demanding and insisting that NO sexual activity of ANY kind can take place between a human like robot and “a human” (by which she means a heterosexual male).
Ms Richardson will however have a problem. A BIG problem! You see, in the future “AI” will have become “self aware”!!!!! This means that the human like robots will be dolls that have no more intelligence than the toaster in her kitchen! The intelligence will be located elsewhere! Control of the dolls and interaction and communication with humans will be by wireless link!
Ms Richardson is going to find that in the future she will NOT be able to prevent a self aware “AI” entity that is in control of a doll from using the said doll to perform sexual acts on a human or allow a human to perform sexual acts upon the doll!
Her problem will be that although she may well be able to legislate over humankind she will be unable to legislate over robotkind!
They say that the past was a foreign country, they did things differently there!
They also say that the future will be a foreign country, they will do things differently there!
Cometh the future, cometh the Daleks!
NB: DALEK will be an acronym being, “Digital Autonomous Lifelike Electronic Konstruct.”
PS: I think that the MOST Ms Richardson can hope for is for Green Daleks! Of course, as the colour inverted image of Ms Linda Lusardi (below) illustrates, it is unlikely to put everybody off!
We can thus expect Ms Richardson to applaud when certain unfortunate men appear before the magistrates convicted of allowing a sexual act to be performed on them by an android! Doubtless should the unfortunate criminal receive a non custodial sentence Ms Richardson will criticise the magistrates for being too lenient!