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Home > Robots > Give Us a Smile: Tomorrow’s Artificial Companions Could Have Flesh and Blood Faces

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Home›Robots›Give Us a Smile: Tomorrow’s Artificial Companions Could Have Flesh and Blood Faces

Give Us a Smile: Tomorrow’s Artificial Companions Could Have Flesh and Blood Faces

By M. Christian
July 4, 2024
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0

Will merging biology and technology make robots indistinguishable from humans?

Researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Department of Mechano-Informatics recently developed a novel method of affixing organic tissue to artificial surfaces.  Specifically, as their paper states, to produce a “robotic face covered with living skin.”

Suppose Michio Kawai, Minghao Nie, and Haruka Oda’s process is developed further. In that case, it might lead to artificial companions with not just lifelike expressions but could be extended to cover entire bodies, so like their partners, they’d feel very much like bone-fide human beings.

Grown not built

The University of Tokyo team’s process utilizes a network of specialty-designed anchors onto which organic tissue can be attached.

As for why they developed this innovative approach to marrying skin to an inorganic surface, the researchers wrote, “One particularly noteworthy aspect of this method is its ability to endow robots with the self-healing capabilities inherent in biological skin.”

If the concept sounds familiar, you might recall how the malevolent AI, SkyNet, gave its titular Terminators an outer covering of real skin to infiltrate the human resistance.

RECOMMENDED READ: State of the Sexbot Market: The World’s Best Sex Robot and AI Sex Doll Companies [UPDATED]

However, the legendary author Philip K Dick beat James Cameron to the punch with his short story, “The Electric Ant,” where the protagonist suddenly realizes he wasn’t born but made, deceived for most of his existence by his organic flesh.

While equipping tomorrow’s robots with a means to repair themselves would be an obvious benefit, it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision Toyko University’s process, with a sexual spin, extended to a new generation of intimate artificial companions—especially as the most sophisticated of today’s models tend to look and feel distinctly plastic.  

And you wear it well

Michio Kawai, Minghao Nie, and Haruka Oda’s system could be modified so that instead of permanently bonding tissue to a robot’s body exterior surface, it might be easily exchanged for other flesh suits, granting them a nearly limitless number of enticing wardrobe options, including colors, textures, with or without extra padding, or sexually enticing aromas produced by cloned sweat glands.

We could conceivably fit our skin-clothed companions with an equally broad choice of hairstyles—or none at all, outlandishly wild body modifications, or even imaginatively fantastical features—Total Recall, anybody?

But what good is a hybrid synthetic companion if it only looks and feels lifelike but still moves like an awkward machine?

The answer may lie in soft robotics, another promising technology we’ve reported on quite a few times.  Eschewing muscle-mimicking hydraulics for clunky mechanical actuators, our skin-sheathed artificial companions could be as graceful and erotically alluring as the most talented human dancers—in and out of bed.

Overcoming the ick factor

Let’s—excuse the expression—face it; though some may like the idea of creating, as well as intimately interacting with an artificial companion sporting a fleshy suit, a greater percentage will likely find the technology more disturbing than arousing.

But what if we take life—at least as we presently understand it—out of the equation and swap living cells for artificial ones?  

Something we’re already well on our way to developing, for instance, the work being done by scientists at New York University’s Molecular Design Institute, who’ve successfully produced inorganic cells capable of mimicking the actions and behaviors of their organic counterparts.

Using simulated tissue would provide our hybrid artificial companions with all of the pros and less of the squeamish cons of a truly biological/technological robot, so no one would have to worry about where, how, or from whom our living robots got their flesh and blood parts.

We Can Build You

By taking a less manufactured, more grown approach to artificial companions, we may end up, unintentionally or otherwise, blurring the line between what is human and what might not necessarily be inhuman but perhaps an entirely different kind of person.

A question we may have to face sooner rather than later, as Philip K Dick was fond of pondering when our synthetic flesh and artificial blood companions find it increasingly difficult to comprehend why they shouldn’t be treated like the rest of humanity—when they mentally and physically feel just like us.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

Tagssextechsexbotsartificialcompanionsandroids

M. Christian

M.Christian (they/them) loves nothing better than exploring the intersections of sex and technology—and speculating on the future of both. A highly regarded erotica writer they have six novels,12 collections, 100+ short stories, and 25 anthologies as an editor to their name. Their non-fiction regularly appears in many sites, but they're most proud of being a regular contributor to Future of Sex.

Of their erotic fiction, Tristan Taormino said that “M.Christian is a literary stylist of the highest caliber: smart, funny, frightening, sexy—there's nothing [they] can't write about… and brilliantly.”

Reflecting their unique ability to sympathetically and convincingly write for a range of genders and sexual orientations, their stories have appeared in multiple editions of Best American Erotica, Best Gay Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, The Mammoth Books of Erotica, and others. Their collection of gay erotic fiction, Dirty Words, was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award.

While a majority of their stories have been collected into books like Dirty Words, their fondness for combining sex and science fiction is clearly evident in collections that include Rude Mechanicals, Technorotica, Better Than The Real Thing, Skin Effect Effect, Bachelor Machine, and Hard Drive: The Best Sci-Fi Erotica of M.Christian.

As a novelist, M.Christian’s versatility is on full display with Running Dry, The Very Bloody Marys, Brushes, Painted Doll; and the somewhat controversial queer BDSM/horror/thrillers Finger's Breadth, and Me2.

M.Christian has worked on the industry’s production side as an Associate Publisher for Renaissance E Books and as a Publisher for Digital Parchment Services. The latter dedicated to celebrating the works of science-fiction legends such as William Rotsler, Jerome Bixby, Jody Scott, Arthur Byron Cover, Ernest Hogan, and James Van Hise.

Covering topics like BDSM safety, sexual education, senior sexuality concerns, queer and gender issues, plus reviewing a variety of sex tech products, M.Christian’s non-fiction has appeared on sites like Kinkly, Tickle.Life, Sexpert, Queer Majority, Sex for Every Body, and—of course—their ongoing work for Future of Sex.

If there’s anything M.Christian enjoys more than writing, it’s teaching. A featured presenter, sometimes with their friend Ralph Greco Jr, at national sex and BDSM events, they have lectured on kink play (with an emphasis on safety), polyamory, boosting sexual creativity, and erotica writing--for beginners or those wanting to go pro.

M.Christian is a cohost on two popular sex-education podcasts: Love’s Outer Limits with Dr. Amy Marsh and Licking Non-Vanilla with Ralph Greco, Jr.
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