How next-gen artificial companions could borrow a page or two from the Magic Kingdom’s Audio-Animatronics

If you’re a regular reader, you’re likely well aware of how many—sometimes wildly unique—approaches there have been to bringing a sense of touch to virtual reality experiences or, what we’re here for, giving synthetic companions ultra-lifelike, human-feeling skins.

Enter a pair of University of California, Santa Barbara researchers who’ve taken yet another angle: a display that allows viewers to feel as well as see what they’re looking at.

Though in its early stages, the work of PhD candidate Max Linnander and professor Yon Visell of the university’s RE Touch Lab could be what sexbot developers have been looking for—with a little help from, of all people, Disney’s Audio-Animatronics Imagineers.

Feeling the Future

Published in Science Robotics, the Linnander and Visell system employs a network of millimeter-wide optotactile pixels that, when struck from behind by a low-intensity laser, illuminate and—courtesy of each pixel’s built-in air pocket—produce a small but haptically detectable bump.

RECOMMENDED READ: Touching Tomorrow: High Tech Sensory Toy Heralds a New Era for Synthetic Companions

“I put my finger on the pixel and felt a clear tactile pulse whenever the light flashed,” Yon Visell told Futurity. “That was a special moment—the moment we knew the core idea could work.”

Yon Visell further explained that the technology was scalable, demonstrated by the team already producing an impressive 1,500-pixel screen; far more than any other haptic displays before or since.

Touching Tomorrow

Here’s where Disney might come in. You see, while for many years their theme park Audio-Animatronics relied on relatively simple mechanisms in order to perform equally limited facial movements, their famous Imagineers recently began thinking outside that clunky old box.

Recently patented—and already part of many of their attractions—rather than struggling to give their figures realistic expressions, they made them almost featureless, essentially blank surfaces given life by networks of computer-controlled, motion-tracking projectors.

All fine and/or dandy for static theme park attractions, though not so much for hopefully-movable—or perhaps someday fully ambulatory—artificial companions.

Agreed, we might be getting a bit out there technology-wise, but we might someday be able to marry the RE Touch Lab’s work with a novel take on projection mapping by swapping an external image source for an interior one.

For example, imagine our artificial robot’s skin as either a full-body haptic display screen, one capable of looking and feeling however you or anyone wants, or just a tactile surface with colors, patterns, and so forth illuminated from within.

Embracing the Possibilities

Obviously, the former would be preferable. But even if the technology is decades away, having a user-configurable, fully haptic head has a lot going for it. No less so, how, like Disney’s new Audio-Animatronics, it could do everything a human face can do without any of the distressingly odd, uncanny valley awkwardness of a mechanical replica.

Additionally, you would be able to change everything about it—color, textures, expressions, the list goes on and on—without needing to replace one head with another: merely tap a special smartphone app and, lo and behold, your companion can resemble whoever you desire.

And compliments of an advanced version of RE Touch Lab tech, it would also feel however you want. Probably the most challenging, as you would need to create a microscopic array of specialized optotactiles—kind of like how our tongues have different taste buds—in order to replicate as a pulsating array of different sensations, it’s still a possibility. Albeit one we may not see for a decade or more—a lot more.

As we like to say when discussing these and other exciting new haptic technologies, the RE Touch Lab’s work—or (ahem) borrowing from Disney’s Imagineers—may not get us where we want to go. In all likelihood, what will be is going to be a little of this, a little of that, mixed in with a hefty dose of good, old-fashioned creativity.

Which, when you think about it, has already helped us fulfill so many of our sexually futuristic fantasies—and, in the process, showed us there’s nothing we can’t do if we put our minds and especially our imaginations to it.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Look Who’s Feeling: New Haptic Tech Plus Sexbots May Equal Endless Erotic Possibilities appeared first on Future of Sex.

TruTru might be just what we want—and desire

TruTru, a gelatinous-like, tactile-responsive companion toy, can do everything from growing warmer or cooler, changing color and, according to the project site, “simulate fleeting and shifting sensations, like the ripple of water, the patter of rain, the swish of wind, the flutter of butterfly wings, or the gentle rhythm of shifting pulses.”

As envisioned by JUE Design and Research studio, in conjunction with the Intelligent Human-Machine Mechanical Interface Lag at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, TruTru is “a loveable friend that offers not just haptic sensations, but emotional companionship in users’ everyday life.”

Alas, it isn’t cleare how TruTru is supposed to accomplish this, plus serving as a mindfulness and meditation guide, as well as a sleep aid.

If TruTru actually functions as promised, imagine with me how the artificial companion industry could adapt its technology to achieve mind-glowing—and erotically exciting—fascinating new options. 

And I’m feeling good 

TruTru will supposedly have optional, straplike arms, allowing it “to be worn, clipped, or carried in various ways, adapting fluidly to everyday movement.”

However, touch—or rather its haptic capacity to replicate not only the aforementioned fluttering butterfly wings but “natural materials like stone, wood, sand, feather, shell, etc., as well as familiar man-made surfaces such as fabric, rubber, ceramic, etc.” is how TruTru might evolve from a pleasant novelty to a potential sextech marvel.

RECOMMENDED READ: Hello Dolly: Today’s Customized Synthetic Companions Set the Stage for Tomorrow’s Pleasures

The project’s site is scant on the technological details.  Hypothesizing, it might rely on a kind of electrostimulation to physiologically mimic sensations, like how a low voltage charge applied across a patch of skin can sometimes seem slippery.

Sound is another possibility. For instance employing subsonic, on one end of the scale, hypersonic vibrations to generate similarly realistic tactile impressions. 

Touch me, touch me, touch me

No matter TruTru’s final design, its technology is likely to end up, legally or otherwise, paperclipped by the sextech and artificial companion industries.

Imagine state-of-the-art pleasurable playthings capable of near-instantaneously growing hotter or colder, rougher or slicker, more or less electrically stimulating, capable of emulating fur, stone, metal, flesh, or a hundreds other substances.

Even if TruTru’s sensation mimicry is never fully realized, merely having temperature or color changing sextoys or artificial companions offers all sorts of wildly erotic possibilities.

Just as today’s best flat screens—produced by South Korea’s LG Display Co., as reported by The Korea Economic Daily—can be twisted, stretched, and folded, consider how a TruTru-like toy might be covered in a likewise twistable, stretchable, and foldable outer skin.

Want to change your artificial companion’s face, skin tone, or have it seductively flow from one color to the next?  How about having your futuristic sextoy’s surface double as a high resolution screen for watching whatever turns you on?  Or why not add in some super fast networking so your smart companion or toy would resemble your partner—regardless of how thousands of miles may separate you.

Hold onto your dreams

TruTru may never be anything but an implausible, high-tech fantasy—though if rapid, frequently unpredictable technological charge is anything to go by—it, or any product with colorful, haptic, temperature changing capabilities—could still reshape pleasure technologies like nothing before or since.

In fact, the idea of a cute little spontaneously metamorphic, mindfulness, meditation, sleep, and/or friendly buddy may be what jump-starts that reshaping.  

After all, just a few paragraphs back we offered some interesting possibilities, with plenty of others should we—or you or all of us—put our minds to it.

So rather than scoffing at imaginative concepts like TruTru, instead look at them as creative jumping off points towards other, perhaps more realistic, breakthroughs to come.  

For as everyone knows, dreams—erotic or otherwise—can be fun on their own but also may be just what we need to make the real world a better, happier, and more fulfilling place.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Touching Tomorrow: High Tech Sensory Toy Heralds a New Era for Synthetic Companions appeared first on Future of Sex.

The future of adult entertainment might be more psychological, less technological

From precisely directed streams of high-pressure air, hydrogel gloves lined with electrotactile pads, and what’s basically a full body version to directly stimulating our hands all the way to our brains, the researchers—not to mention the sextech industry—have been pursuing the holy grail of haptic virtual reality for decades.

But what if our minds are actually responsible for our experiences of lifelike touch?? Far-fetched, to be sure, but perhaps this undoubtedly enthralling concept might someday become a key part of haptic systems—and make our dreams of fully interactive, totally immersive adult VR movies and games a reality.

Touch me, touch me

Philosopher Laura Marks’ Touch: Sensuous Theory and Multisensory Media explores the concept of “haptic visuality,” suggesting that visual art, and possibly even the written word, can evoke tactile sensations in the viewer—or reader.

In an Instagram post, Miraal Habib, a “bio-mimicker” visual artist, pondered in an Instagram post, “What if we could simulate the feeling of touch without actually touching anything?” Habib was inspired by Marks’ theory during her own Master’s thesis work. 

RECOMMENDED READ: With Sugar on Top: Tasty New VR Tech Flavors the Future

Habib’s project utilizes natural patterns and imagery as a more effective means of communicating important scientific information, because “Human beings have become attuned to understanding nature since the beginning of time.”

Feeling feelings I never felt 

How does virtual reality, especially the explicit adult variety, fit into all of this? The answer could lie in producing content that, before the action begins, first firmly grounds the viewer in reality. 

By this, I mean that most VR videos lean towards creating a fantasy, almost surreal experience; one where everything is polished, perfect, and the farthest thing from real life. Clothes mysteriously vanish, sexual activities pop in and out of existence, and linear time is nowhere to be seen—or experienced.

Then there’s the hardware, which, ironically, becomes heavier and increasingly cumbersome the higher the resolution, thus making them less immersive. Add VR motion sickness to this, and it’s understandable why it takes so long—if it happens at all—to get a feeling of actually being in a virtual environment.

It also explains why a large percentage of today’s sextech haptic accessories have a massively high hill to climb, the foothills of which are the less-than-arousing sensation of having one’s genitals inserted into a loudly whirling, clearly mechanical device.

I let my sensory nerve open

As mentioned, Marks’ concept of specifically crafting art capable of eliciting a touch-like experience might not solve all of VR’s haptic issues, but it might be a great place to start.

For instance, VR adult content could put as much work into crafting familiar environments as they currently do to create unreal ones, such as setting the stage by having the viewer enter via a door with squeaky hinges and stepping into a familiar-seeming room rather than an immersion-breaking set.

Next, how about adding a plethora of other grounding details, such as having a nice, plump, juicy apple offered up, then lusciously bitten into by our more fleshly, less plastic performer. Obviously we can’t taste it—at least not until haptic tech finally gets us there—but if Marks is right, it might help boost our sensual verisimilitude.

Likewise, everything should unfold in real time, with additional cues such as groaning bedsprings and floorboards, a squeaking floor, or a whooshing ceiling fan.

Companies must also make VR headsets lighter and more immersive until they’re as comfortable as regular eyeglasses.

Your heart is beatin’ next to mine

Again, all this won’t replace haptic tech’s fully immersive Holy Grail. However, these more realistic approaches to producing adult VR content may mean the winning hardware won’t have to work as hard as it otherwise would.

Think of it like that imposing hill I mentioned: we could either work harder and harder to make the lifeless feel lifelike, or take what might prove to be an exponentially more immersive shortcut by focusing on making what already looks realistic into where everything—and everyone—feels excitedly lifelike.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Seeing Is Feeling: New Approach to Haptic Immersion May Transform Erotic VR Forever appeared first on Future of Sex.

Electronic tongue replicates everything except spicy stuff—so far

Ohio State University researchers have invented what might prove to be an innovative approach to granting virtual reality users a method for seeing, hearing, and tasting.

The only downside is that the team has yet to figure out how to deliver hot, spicy, and fatty flavors.  

Still, if developed further, the technology may be the gold at the end of the immersive entertainment rainbow—and a crucial step towards fully duplicating a huge variety of real-life sensations in artificial, digital environments. It would also give people the ability to savor a banquet of what’d otherwise be unavailable or flat-out impossible meals.

Raspberry berets

According to Shulin Chen of Ohio State University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering, as published in ScienceAdvances, the technology begins with what could best be described as an electronic tongue capable of breaking down and subsequently analyzing information about how much or how little of five specific flavors it detects.

As anyone who knows anything about cooking, or dining for that matter, those five are glucose for sweetness, sodium chloride for salty, glutamate which mirrors umani, magnesium chloride for bitterness, and citric acid for sour.

Once compiled, the data is transmitted to the second component, which supplies matching flavors to a recipient’s mouth.

A plus is that the system may prove to be an invaluable research tool by stimulating not just the whole tongue but also specific taste buds.

Banana pancakes 

The Guardian quoted Marianna Obrist, a University College London professor of multisensory interfaces, as saying of Ohio State University’s work, “Taste stimulation is a particularly challenging area, yet the authors seem to present a compelling integration of taste sensations to enrich digital experiences.”

In their original paper, the researchers suggest their technology might be helpful—or merely entertaining—in a host of different ways, “Potential applications include immersive gaming, online shopping, remote education, weight management, sensory testing, physical rehabilitation, and others.”

RECOMMENDED READ: Making Scents of It All: Can We Make Sexbots Smell Lifelike?

As mentioned previously, the only current issue is finding a means to reproduce spicy and fatty flavors accurately. Not to chastise the obviously creative inventiveness that went into this technology, but we can’t help but wonder why they didn’t simply add a little tabasco to their five-flavor recipe.

The researcher’s approach of first breaking down and then synthesizing how various foods taste appears to bypass what’s apparently limited previous attempts; that is, rather than attempting to copy the memory of how something tastes, Ohio State University researchers instead know down to the smallest percentages of sour, sweet, savory, umami, and salty.

American Pie

Aside from making VR seem less virtual and more real, along with the team’s already creative suggestions, their technology could also be used to concoct a whole new world of sexually-stimulating flavors, perhaps even ones meticulously crafted to produce anything from wild arousal to boosting our other senses to otherwise undreamt of levels of excitement.

Putting a new twist on what the team already envisioned, virtual adult games might undergo a sensory renaissance, especially if you couple taste with haptic tech.  

We must not forget how closely linked smell is to taste. Something similar may also be right around the corner, especially when you consider how technologically similar it might be to what the Ohio State University researchers have already developed.

Peaches and cream

Along with failing to copy spicy and fatty flavors, the only other limitation this tech may face is comfort. After all, few, if any, people may be willing to have a cumbersome apparatus stuck in their mouth—even if they can gorge on a limitless, albeit digitally simulated, smorgasbord.

Even if it were somehow reduced in size, its use of physical substances may also hinder its appeal. 

However, the Ohio State University technology may prove to be an important stage in producing truly immersive virtual experiences by bypassing clunky hardware in favor of direct neural stimulation.

In the meantime, if progressively refined, this technology may eventually be a standard feature, or at least a fascinating optional feature, of tomorrow’s next-next-next-generation virtual reality entertainment systems—and what a tasty world that will surely be!

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post With Sugar on Top: Tasty New VR Tech Flavors the Future appeared first on Future of Sex.

What happens when sextoys aren’t merely Internet-connected but truly intelligent?

Red Dwarf’s Talkie Toaster; the butter-passing robot from Rick & Morty; Cyberpunk 2077’s chatty pistol, Skippy; science fiction is rife with often comedic, sentient, gadgetry.

Raising the question, what pros, cons, and unforeseen issues might arise from adding intelligence to tomorrow’s pleasure devices?  Or, to put it another way, how would you feel about having a combination sex-coach and roleplaying feature? Or would your cutting-edge plaything asking, in a sultry, steamy voice, how you’d like to come today be more off-putting than arousing?

Smart versus intelligent

Utilizing built-in Bluetooth and/or Wifi to link with other, similar sextoys; connect to a host of interactive, sometimes virtual reality, adult games; or have access to a nearly limitless range of user-customized vibration patterns; it’s no wonder a respectable percentage of today’s higher-end sextoys have more than earned their smart nomenclature.

AI may be the sextech’s industry’s newest, shiniest buzzword, but even the most advanced models aren’t truly intelligent.  They can’t typically detect anything regarding their immediate environment or use that information towards achieving a specific goal, like a sextoy learning how best to excite its owner.

RECOMMENDED READ: Patented Pleasures: Sextech’s Fascinating History Revealed

Not this isn’t in the realm of possibility, especially when you factor in how blistering fast AI technologies are developing.  Though, depending on which researchers you talk to, we may never come close to creating anything remotely self-aware—or so utterly different from human consciousness we’ll never understand it.

Brain versus mind

Back to the idea of brainy sextoys, as AI has demonstrated, software doesn’t need to be really aware for us to think it is.  Just look at the staggering number of digital companions currently available—and how they’re growing progressively more emotionally and sexually fulfilling.

Besides, equipping a sextoy with a smaller-scale artificial intelligence, something between one of those super-lifelike companions and, for instance, a smart-but-not-actually-intelligent kitchen appliance might be just what we need.  

Plus, minimal AIs would have a smaller environmental footprint—something the technology urgently needs to address, particularly as they, no matter how enjoyable and erotically fascinating they may be to converse with, aren’t worth sacrificing the earth for.

How can I please you today?

Sure, fooling around with an apparently-sentient plaything sounds like it might be fun but beyond its novelty value what else is in its favor?

For starters, imagine it’s also fitted with an array of sensors—temperature, moisture, heartbeat, the whole kit and caboodle—to monitor its user’s sexual arousal, altering its vibrations, contractions, or whatever else it deems necessary to get them where they want to go.  

Add in a selection of enticing voices for interactive, erotic story-telling fun or give it access to a far more sophisticated, sex-therapy-trained AI providing positive reinforcement coupled with a bevy of useful, pleasure-boosting tips, and you could see why a truly smart toy might be appealing.

Such devices could be incredibly helpful to those with mobility concerns.  Unfortunately current voice-controlled models are not as dependable as they could be, similar to how Siri and Alexa sometimes need repeated requests for the time or weather.

Upping the intelligence in artificial iIntelligence might do a lot towards reducing these voice-operated tech frustrations, moreso by outfitting the toy with enhanced language processing skills: not just responding to various keywords but actually learning how its user speaks, including responding when they may not be capable of speaking by detecting sounds it knows means they’re aroused—or not.

A friend—and lover—indeed

A potentially positive side effect of having a somewhat-intelligent sextoy is how, by sharing your sexual wants and desires with it, you might begin relating to it less than as a pleasure appliance and more akin to a playmade or perhaps a partner.  

In the process, it might also increase your understanding and compassion towards people, as well.  In a way, these artificially intelligent toys might mirror Shinto, the Japanese belief that all things are in their own way alive.  After all, if your chatty, friendly vibrator could be then why shouldn’t you treat everything and everyone around you as if they were, too—and thus deserving of respect, kindness, compassion, and love?

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post AI-Assisted Sextech: Pleasure Plus or Too Smart for Our/Their Own Good? appeared first on Future of Sex.

Pleasure pills, orgasmatrons, replicants, and more could be right around the corner

Spaceships, aliens, robots—we all love a good science fiction film. But aside from a few lucky guesses on the filmmakers’ parts, we rarely think of them as being truly prophetic.

Especially when it comes to their depictions of futuristic sex.

However, with new developments in pharmacology, virtual reality, robotics, telepresence, and artificial intelligence, more than a few classic, and sort of classic,science-fiction films are getting very close to erotic reality.

Here is a subjective look at five science-fiction films where their depictions of futuristic sex are fast-becoming less cinematic fantasy and more everyday sexual reality.

Sex pills from Barbarella (1968)

Barbarella: “Make love? But no one’s done that for hundreds of centuries!”

Featuring Jane Fonda’s zero-gravity striptease and life-threatening pleasure machine, Roger Vadim’s romp has become the benchmark of erotic science-fiction films. Based on the French comic by Jean-Claude Forest, Barbarella is pretty tame by modern standards, but when it was released in 1968 it raised more than a few eyebrows.

As part of the erotic phantasmagoria was the concept of sex pills. The explanation being given that Earth had evolved far beyond simple… well, physical love.

Yet we are possibly no more than a few years away from an actual, practical orgasm drug. Pharmaceutical researchers have already stumbled across medications like Anafranil, an anti-depressant that has the rather odd side effect of giving users orgasms when they yawn.
More than likely, many drug companies are working on turning that reaction into an actual pleasure-inducing little pill.

What will happen to human society when sexual pleasure no longer has to be physically derived is anyone’s guess. But if Barbarella is any indication, there will always be human beings more than willing to do it “the old-fashioned way.”

2. Virtual Sex from Demolition Man (1993)

John Spartan: “Look, Huxley, why don’t we just do it the old-fashioned way?”
Lenina Huxley: “Eeewww, disgusting! You mean … fluid transfer?”

Falsely imprisoned in a cryogenic prison, John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) is defrosted into a ridiculously passive future to deal with another previous century throwback, one dangerously bonkers Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) in Demolition Man.

In this film directed by John Flynn, Spartan doesn’t just have to catch Phoenix, but he has to deal with a world where good old messy sex has been replaced by a form of virtual reality.

Virtual reality, when the film was made back in 1993, was pretty much just speculation. But we now have products like Apple’s Vision Pro and the Meta Quest 2 and many others.

Many developers are already rushing to create erotic virtual reality systems, where users will be able to don a pair of optical goggles and immerse themselves solo or with others—in a practically infinite world of erotic pleasure.

Let’s just hope that when virtual reality sex becomes mainstream, we won’t have to deal with the three seashells that perplexed John Spartan (see the movie to get the joke).

3. The Orgasmatron from Sleeper (1973)

Miles Monroe: “Perform sex? Uh, uh, I don’t think I’m up to a performance, but I’ll rehearse with you if you like.”
Luna Schlosser: “Okay. I just thought you might want to; they have a machine here.”
Miles Monroe: “Machine? I’m not getting into that thing. I, I’m strictly a hand operator; you know, I, I… I don’t like anything with moving parts that are not my own.

Woody Allen’s 1973 movie Sleeper is only a laugh fest, but it’s also a pretty solid piece of science-fiction cinema.

Thawed out from cryogenic suspension, New York health food store owner Miles Monroe is thrust into a future where robot servants are commonplace, a healthy diet has been discovered to be steak and hot fudge sundaes, a despotic president rules everyone, and sex is enjoyed via an apparently mechanical “orgasmatron” booth.

While little detail is shown about the operations of the booth beyond that couples enter and leave… satisfied.

Woody’s adverse initial reaction to the device is pre 21st century—though his obvious pleasure after a solo interaction is more than evident. Preference to “hand operation” aside, we are actually on the verge of  our own version of the orgasmatron.

Arguably, the basic idea has been around since 1734 when the French invented the hand-operated Tremoussoir (and a steam-powered version appeared in 1869). These days we call them vibrators.

But even this basic technology is undergoing tremendous transformations. Modern sex toys are often Bluetooth enabled, programmable, interactive, and almost infinitely flexible. No matter your sexual itch, more than a few of them can scratch it.

Very soon, though, we’ll see haptic sex toys mated with virtual reality to create truly immersive and physical sexual experiences with holograms. In fact, we are already seeing a form of this.

This technology will mean that in your VR sexual paradise, when you reach out to touch someone you will really, actually be able to feel the contact. Then, in a few more years, we might see actual electric stimulation of the brain to induce orgasm.

Soon we will erotically, and literally, agree with Miles Monroe: “My brain? It’s my second favorite organ!”

4. Surrogate sex from Surrogates (2009)

Female Counsel: “Agent Greer, we’re not doctors.”
Tom Greer: “Honey, I don’t know what you are. I mean, for all I know, you could be some big, fat dude sitting in his stim chair.”

While justifiably not ranked among the great science-fiction films, Jonathan Mostow’s 2009 movie Surrogates (based on Robert Venditti and Brett Weldele’s graphic novel) does feature a unique depiction of future sex tech.

In this world of the near future, most of humanity spend their days in isolation, preferring to deal with the outside world and each other via the titular “surrogates:” sophisticated robotic puppets that can look like anyone and do things that no regular human being can do.

And, yes, even sexual things.

Alas, the film is pure preach and never really gets into the real sexual potential of the technology, preferring to use the usual burnt out cop (Bruce Willis) up against a convoluted conspiracy. Yawn!

RECOMMENDED READ: In the Year 2125: When Your Sexual Possibilities Will Be Practically Limitless

While we may be a few years away from lifelike robotic surrogates, we already have some intriguing early prototypes running around. Videophones, Facetime, and other examples of the tech are pretty much commonplace, allowing friends, family, and business associates to be projected onto phones, homes, or conference rooms.

All that was lacking has been mobility: the ability for users to actually interact with the person on the other side of their video call.

But now, through companies like Anybots, iRobot, MantaRobot, and many others, people thousands of miles away can physically work via robots with pretty much anyone, anywhere. Commonly referred to as telepresence, it’s already being used by doctors, teachers, and many others.

As with all technology, it no doubt will only be a few more years before sex will mix with telepresence. We can only hope that when that happens we’ll deal with it better than this very average film.

5. Replicants from Blade Runner (1982)

Tyrell: “More human than human is our motto.”

Concluding our tour of science-fiction films that are quickly becoming sexual fact is a true classic of the genre. Smoky, dour, noir, bleak, and totally mesmerizing, Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner explores the impact of replicants, artificial humans so indistinguishable from the flesh-and-blood variety they can only be detected by trained specialists.

And, when they invariably go rogue, they get hunted down by blade runners.

Based on the classic science-fiction novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner asks one key question: what is human? When Deckard (Harrison Ford) is tasked to track down and “retire” a group of replicants, he faces serious moral quandaries about them as well as himself, especially when he falls in love with one.

While we are quite far away from actually creating a totally convincing artificial human, we have begun to make some incredible baby-steps, including in a moment of irony that almost seems like the beginning of another science-fiction film, Hanson Robotics created a simulacrum of Philip K. Dick himself which went missing a few years ago.

So microwave some popcorn, make yourself comfy on the couch, and fire up some of these cinematic explorations of the world of tomorrow. But keep in mind that as you do, their fanciful looks at the future of sex are closer than you think.

Image sources: IMDB

The post Erotic Science Fiction Cinematic Technologies That May Soon Be Sextech Reality appeared first on Future of Sex.