Bob Hickok enters the strange new trade in which humans teach robots how to have sex and reveals why the coming sex-machine industry may become an unlikely battleground of the multipolar world.
Sex robots are moving from science fiction into the consumer market, and human performers are already teaching them how to move. In a multipolar world, the states and companies that build these machines will also decide which values they carry, what intimate data they collect, and how deeply they should enter private life.
The spread of artificial intelligence is changing factories, armies, offices, and schools. It is now entering the bedroom. Somnia, a startup developing an advanced robotic sex companion, is hiring an Intimacy Motion Capture Performer. The employee will wear the sort of motion-capture suit used by film studios and perform sexual movements while engineers record the results. In plain English, Somnia needs a human being to teach its robots how to have sex.
