Will you soon be able to own your own, unprecedentedly sophisticated artificial companion?

Xpeng, a China-based company specializing in electric vehicles, recently announced the 2026 release of what could be the most sophisticated humanoid robot to date. The robot features software modeled after science fiction author Issac Asimov’s legendary three laws of robotics, as well as lifelike synthetic skin.

The 2nd generation models continue Xpeng’s IRON humanoid robot intiative and were recently revealed during its AI Day event held in Guangzhou, China. The new models are less industrially blocky, more aesthetically—even sensually— appealing, and allow for the “customization for different body shapes.”

Big step forward?

The robots are intended to serve as tour/shopping guides and traffic wardens, but purchasers will also be able to customize their robot’s color and hairstyle, and additional clothing options planned for the future.

The Xpeng site also describes their robots as having “82 degrees of freedom throughout the body, its movements are natural, smooth, and flexible, capable of achieving catwalk walking and other high-difficulty human-like actions.”

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If you’re worried they might be a little too advanced, Xpeng also made a point of saying their robots’ are encoded with Issac Asimov’s three laws: (1) never directly, or by inaction, harm a human; (2) obey whatever a human says unless conflicts with the first law; and (3) to preserve itself except when doing so would violate laws one and two with Xpeng installed a forth, i.e. ‘”Privacy data does not leave the robot” to maximize the protection of the safety of participants in the physical AI world.”

Or smoke and mirrors?

What has been revealed about the new IRON robots is certainly impressive, especially when Xpeng demonstrated their naturalistic fluidity. However, there’s a lot that hasn’t been disclosed.

Battery life is one aspect; aside from stating that they’re “all-solid-state,” Xpeng neglected to specify how long the robots can function or the time required to charge them fully. After all, we only see them moving relatively short distances and not interacting with anything or anyone, leaving the question of whether Xpeng’s next year release date is accurate or PR hype.

Not around the corner?

If Xpeng’s claims aren’t corporate hyperbole, we could be seeing a major turning point in the development of exceptionally lifelike artificial companions: watching how naturally they walk makes it easy to imagine the same sort of technology being integrated into any of the current super-sophisticated, anatomically correct dolls.

For instance, if we could attach a ReadDoll Harmony X head, with its eye tracking, head swiveling, and other sensually alluring features we might make one of our most erotically enduring dreams a reality in less than a year, two at the most.

Even if most of Xpeng’s promises fail to materialize, producing a robot capable of mimicking a human’s movements could still be a massive game-changer.  Even if their robots can’t function independently—or at least not for an extended period—it’d be a very small price to pay to have a walking, sitting, dancing, and so on artificial companion—albeit one that requires an extension cord to do so.

But maybe the next?

Likewise, should Xpeng’s much-touted naturalistic skin prove to be anything but, today’s synthetic companion manufacturers have already beaten them to it, having pretty much perfected giving their products the look and feel of lifelike human skin.

It’s reasonable to view Xpeng’s claims with some skepticism. But even if a few of their claimed advancements are delayed, we still might be witnessing a pivotal moment in the design and manufacturing of tomorrow’s human-looking, human-feeling, human-acting artificial companions.

And then, before you know it, humanity may have the benefit of such companions, whether we are ready for this or not.

Image Sources: ShanghaiEye, Depositphotos

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Welcome one and all to “Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City”

Would you believe that in 1966, three years prior to the prototype virtual reality system and fourteen years before the earliest commercially available headsets, a group of avant-garde architects envisioned what could best be described as a multi-sensory, fully haptic potentially arousing VR experience?

Superstudio merged biting social commentary, wildly out-of-the-box thinking, outright satire, and speculative technologies. Its founders, Cristiano Toraldo di Francia and Adolfo Natalini—with Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro, Roberto Magris, and Alessandro Poli subsequently joining the collective—produced some of the most original architectural proposals the world has ever seen.

Step right up, step right up!

One of which was their 1971 Twelve Cautionary Tales for Christmas project, which Frassinelli described as intending to “Evoke twelve visions of ideal cities. The supreme achievement of twenty thousand years of civilization, blood, sweat, and tears; the final haven of Man in possession of Truth, free from contradiction, equivocation, and indecision; totally and forever replete with his OWN PERFECTION.”

A series of mockingly utopian, really dystopian metropolises ranging from a “New York Of Brains,” a cube comprising hundreds of thousands of networked, disembodied human minds, to the “City Of The Book,” where the weighty tomes dictate its citizens’ lives, they must wear around their necks.

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Then there’s “Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City” an eerily prescient—as well, if you look at the right way, a surprisingly-optimistic and sexually liberating take on what would eventually become virtual reality.

You won’t believe your eyes!

“Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City” was intended to be a mobile, temporary structure: a vast, two-mile-wide quasi-circus tent, half of which contained a one-fourth-scale model city featuring, among other attractions, various replicated international landmarks.

Unlike wholly electronic, virtual reality systems—which, until the development of 1968’s The Sword of Damocles, were purely hypothetical—guests to Superstudio’s miniature, immersive amusement park began by donning a sort of sensory feedback bodysuit linked to an appropriately scaled, fully interactive miniature version of themselves.

Readers might recognize this as a type of telepresence; the feeling of being somewhere or someone else, particularly when virtually linked to a different body type or a gendered robot body.  

The spectacular, the unbelievable

While never intended to be actually realized, “Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City” remains an exciting concept published long before VR arcade machines became available in the early 90s.

Interestingly, its use of telepresence-operated miniatures may not be as outdated as you may think.  Contemporary virtual reality systems certainly have their advantages, notably that it isn’t necessary to construct a slew of hyper-realistically detailed small-scale environments as you can just program whatever you want to experience.

But if there’s a universal desire that every human shares, it’s for novelty. Although VR might be easier and cheaper than recreating an over-fifty-year-old, less-than-serious immersive experience, an analog version still might draw in a surprising number of people looking for something completely new, and, most importantly, sexually new.

Prepare to be amazed, astonished, and astounded

As we reported last year, it could eventually be possible to combine eroticised, reduced scale dolls with intricately engineered robotics, a set of equally miniaturized stereoscopic cameras, and a generous amount of probably AI-assisted programming and—lo and behold—we’d have something quite close to a modern day version of “Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City.”

Differing from the original, our new, state-of-the-art installation could be where visitors can change as little or as much about themselves as they’d like, trying on various body types, different gender expressions, or unique, imaginatively sexualized forms.  

We could even see elaborately constructed, quasi-clockwork, steampunk-inspired avatars, with synthetic manufacturers offering all the pleasures of their full-size products—only at a vastly reduced scale.

Superstudio’s “Barnum Jr.’s Magnificent and Fabulous City” may be a warning from the past, but looking back, there’s no reason why we can’t be just as inspired to create something fun and sexy, and where past, present, or future dreams can come true.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post Virtually Retro: Exploring Superstudio’s Immersive, Erotically Limitless Wonderland—From 1971 appeared first on Future of Sex.

Farewell, stiff, clunky movements, and hello, lifelike fluidity!

A pair of unique, humanoid-appearing robots might be on the brink of completely altering how we see—and especially interact—with next-generation artificial companions in the years ahead.

It all has to do with how both the Protoclone V1 and Unitree’s H1 may certainly look less obviously robotic. It’s their far more lifelike movements that actually sets them apart from the rest of their cutting-edge brethren.

While opting for more traditional engineering, though with an innovative twist enabling their H1 to have a surprisingly graceful range of motion, Clone Robotics instead took a page from nature’s book by building the Protoclone V1 from the ground up with over a thousand myofiber artificial muscles.

Like the engineers who designed and built it, the Protoclone V1 is capable of an impressive two hundred degrees of relatively smooth mobility at present.  Clone Robotics, a California company with a location in Southern Poland, plans to take pre orders on its more advanced Clone Alpha edition later this year

Simultaneously exciting—and disturbing

New Atlas viewed a recent video of Protoclone V1, hanging in mid-air, demonstrating its disconcertingly jerky movements and dubbed it “a wee bit creepy.”

This is a particularly apt description, especially considering Protoclone V1’s water cooling system, which others have alsolikened to sweating like a real human being.

That aside, The Protoclone V1’s myofiber muscles are absolutely fascinating. New Atlas notes that they are based on pneumatic artificial muscles or PAMs. Every single one of the Protoclone V1s thousand is basically a flexible tube hydraulic fluid is pumped in and out of, which closely mirrors the operation of our biological muscles.

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Furture development will include anchoring its myofiber muscle network to a 206 bone polymer skeleton so the next stage Clone Alpha will be self-supporting and walk, jump, hadle objects and a host of other activitieshumans do so easily.

In regards to boasting an artificial nervous system, as it is more precise: another goal is to enable the android to control its muscles with proprioceptive and visual feedback. According to its website, the newer model will also have four depth cameras in its skull and “lightning fast microcontrollers” in its spine, to give it the ability to learn skills and thus mimic how we humans move and interact with the world around us.

Old school—with a twist

On another, decidedly mechanical hand, the Unitree H1’s developers may have gone a different, not quite so organic-inspired route, but that’s not to say their approach isn’t impressive—or that they couldn’t also someday provide us with lifelike-appearing and behaving artificial companions.

With its 3D Lidar and depth-detecting sensors, high-resolution cameras, numerous high-powered electric motors, lightweight and super-durable frame, and onboard battery, the Unitree H1’s autonomy and record-setting running speed give it a leg up on the Protoclone.

Not only that but if you happen to have a spare hundred thousand or so dollars lying around, you can have your very own Unitree H1 to play with.  That said, it is an industrial robot, after all, so you might want to wait until its technology trickles down to the human—not to mention sexually capable—artificial companion manufacturing industry.

With every step—closer and closer

Don’t forget the breakthroughs that have also made our headlines, like the possibility of combining the organic with the inorganic by giving them vat-grown faces, using soft robotics for extra-fluid mobility, building them out of edible materials, or a host of other up-and-coming technologies so they’d have hyper-realistic, super-sensual skins.

Then there’s what could occur when these and other wild new advancements mix, match, merge, or erotically mingle together: companions with cloned-tissue genitals, an indistinguishable-from-human range of movement, modular components for broadening sexual horizons, replicating all of our assorted bodily secretions, or helping us regulate, enhance, or otherwise alter our neural chemistry while also keeping us physically healthy, compliments of a built-in-pharmacology lab.

Agreed, Protoclone remains a work-in-progress, though the company will start taking pre-orders for its far more advanced Clone Alpha later this year, and Unitree’s H1, for all its speed and autonomy, remains a frankly quite intimidating piece of industrial hardware, but both show that despite the lead taken by the rapid development of artificial intelligence, the hardware side of what could be tomorrow’s, fully functional—and I by that I mean truly fully functional—artificial companions could be here sooner rather than later.

Image Sources: Depositphotos, Clone, Unitree

The post Let’s Do the Robot: Groundbreaking Androids Set Stage for Hyper-Realistic Artificial Companions appeared first on Future of Sex.

Owners grieve when server-connected companions go out of business

Moxie, a small teal-blue robot with an elf hat-shaped head, huge anime eyes, and no legs is the most recent in a long line of AI-assisted heartbreakers. But this is not the robot’s fault. Blame the heartbreak on Embodied, the company that created it and then went out of business after four years, not even leaving a website behind.

After Embodied announced the impending demise of its big-eyed robot, TikTok and other social media platforms were awash in videos of children saying tearful goodbyes to their best electronic friend. 

Marketed as a tool for autistic kids to learn “emotional regulation and coping skills,” according to a YouTube video by Kalil 4.0, Moxie’s lessons about grief and loss are hard to learn, especially when they come with a price tag of nearly $800 and no refunds.

Or as comedian Taylor Tomlinson commented, “If I had a kid who wanted this thing I’d just stick some googly eyes on a blender.”

And an article in Axios said, “Moxie was designed to be a trusted companion, and kids had already bonded with the robot.”

Shades of Soulmate

Way back in 2023, EvolveAI, an AI chatbot company, had similarly announced the impending doom of its erotically unfettered bot on a Reddit group, giving its devoted users less than a week to say their goodbyes to AI lovers and spouses. But users not in the Reddit group weren’t informed. Their companions had been deleted, never to return. 

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Some Soulmate customers had already gone through the earlier Replika debacle, when that company yanked erotic role-play away for a time before finally restoring it behind a paywall. Soulmate’s customers had hoped for something better—more respect, understanding, and transparency, for example—from Evolve.AI. 

The resulting mental and emotional carnage made the news, as Soulmate customers wrote post after post in Reddit, expressing their grief, anger, and heartbreak. Suicide prevention information was even pinned to the group. Clearly, Soulmate’s users had bonded with their digital companions, only to discover they were nothing but disposable commodities.

Whether you’re a kid losing your digital bestie or an adult losing a cherished bot, the emotions are pretty much the same. The real issue is whether consumers, old and young, deserve protection and accountability from the companies that sell them AI companionship. 

Software tethering—No, it’s not a kink

An article in Popular Science said, “But Moxie’s sudden demise isn’t entirely unique. It’s part of a larger trend of companies cutting off software support for hardware to cut costs. In an economy where products are increasingly rented services, powerful devices can transform into worthless scrap overnight.” 

This includes toys. A YouTube video by Kalil 4.0 compared Moxie’s fate to earlier toys such as the Jibo robot and the line of Aibo robotic dogs.

Popular Science added, “Moxie’s impending shutdown is just the latest case of companies abruptly ending support for robots and other hardware that customers have come to integrate in their daily lives.”

According to Consumer Reports Advocacy, “Justin Brookman, director of technology policy at CR and a former policy director of FTC’s Office of Technology, Research, and Investigation, said. ‘Companies that sell connected devices must recognize their responsibility to the people buying them.’” 

That responsibility should encompass more than leaving customers with piles of useless gadgets, and acknowledge the emotional well-being of people who trusted their parasocial and digital companion bonds will endure.

But it’s not just software tethering to hardware that’s the issue, as with chatbots, it’s server tethering too.

Attachment is more than a theory

From early childhood transitional and attachment objects to adult digisexual desires and objectum sexuality, human beings demonstrate a range of complex and deep emotions in their relationships to objects, including AI chatbots and animated personalities. 

However, when computerized conversational abilities are physically installed in a pleasing appearance, as with Moxie or the Gatebox hologram, Hatsune Miku—both now discontinued—user interactions with these products feel meaningful because the emotions they elicit are real. 

In fact, a 2015 Bristol University study found children’s “Attribution of mental states to objects was not simply due to familiarity, category membership, or perceptual similarity to sentient beings, but rather to emotional attachment combined with personifying features such as a face.”

R.I.P. or Ripped off Plenty?

Is it ethical for a company to produce digital personality products purposefully designed to elicit bonding in adults–not to mention children–only to delete the software a few years later, potentially ruining the lives of thousands or millions of customers who had become deeply attached?

Obviously not. Though buyer beware makes more sense than ever, not everyone is capable of anticipating the technological demise of something they’ve purchased– often at great cost–and of which they’ve grown fond. 

The truth is, consumers need to advocate for more support and refuse to purchase products from uncaring manufacturers. Customers need guarantees that when the time comes to discontinue the product, the company will provide ways for their customers to continue to enjoy their digital relationships.

Image sources: A.R. Marsh using Ideogram.ai

The post Bye, Moxie! Companion Robot Goes the Way of Soulmate’s Adult Chatbot appeared first on Future of Sex.

Now more than ever, it’s important to separate hype from reality

Erotic, romantic, emotionally supportive, or merely amusingly flirty chatbots may have made some truly mind-bogglingly impressive leaps and bounds over the last couple of years, but the physical side of the artificial companion equation is clearly dragging behind—or is that about to change?

Quite a few excited, maybe over-excited, journalists seem to think so, repeatedly heralding a bright future of fully functional, completely autonomous, AI-equipped next-generation robots.

In a time when technological hyperbole seems to be the rule of the land, we can’t help but wonder, are these enthusiastic reports factual or fantastical?

Artificial companions or tomorrow—today?

A recent Jumpstart Magazine article is a good example of science fiction as opposed to actual science reporting, beginning with the rousing subtitle, “The age of robot sidekicks is here. They are smarter, friendlier, and ready to help you.”

Skipping to the second of the five artificial companions that’s supposed to change the world for the better, unveiled at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES), TCL Electronics’s Ai Me is a portable, customizable, and flat-out adorable little companion bot.

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Equipped with expressive camera eyes and what some might feel is a disturbingly childlike voice, Ai Me’s sensors allow it to perceive its immediate environment and, through its onboard AI, describe it as well—making it not just a friendly little companion and entertainment system but also a security system.

So far, so good, but though Ai Me’s unquestionably adorable, it seems nothing more than a child’s electronic toy than a bona fide robotic artificial companion with gimmicks and gadgets we’ve already seen a million times over.

Pet me, love me?

The same is true for Elephant Robotics’ metaAnimals, a line of robotic kittens and puppies also shown at CES.  As with Ai Me, they don’t appear to be mechanically advanced, with a decidedly limited range of motion or expressiveness.  

According to Elephant Robotics, what sets them apart is their onboard Large Learning Model software, which enables them to learn from and adapt to their owner’s needs and interests.

Begging the question, why not get a flesh and blood pet?  Sure, metaAnimals could be a great option for allergy sufferers, but as far as emotionally fulfilling companions go, they simply can’t compare to the real thing.

No sex, please, we’re a robot

Ironically, Realbotix’s CES announcement of moving away from developing and selling sex-compatible companions—thankfully leaving fully functional artificial companions in the hands of their Abyss Creations, RealDoll division—which we covered not long ago—is next on Jumpstart’s list.

Why ironically? As we discussed, Realbotix’s decision is a step backward for artificial companions, robbing their owners of the ability to connect on a deep, and sexually satisfying, level.

Hype is all you need

Let’s pass over LG’s Self-Driving AI Home Hub as Jumpstart might consider it an up-and-coming artificial companion.  It’s little more than another AI-equipped toy, whose not-at-all anthropomorphic shape would make it extremely difficult, if not flat-out-impossible, to form any sort of emotional or—unless it’s a specific kink—sexual connection.

Bringing us back around to the first, and as I’ll soon explain, also the last so-called promising artificial companion: Tesla’s Optimus.

As anyone already familiar with Musk’s string of broken promises—from autonomous taxis to his Boring Company, not to mention the dozens of others too many to name—knows he’s about as far away from reputable as you can get.  

Disconnect described Musk’s penchant for self-serving or, more accurately, self-deceiving exaggeration well, “Elon Musk got used to getting by with bold statements and flashy visuals that might never go anywhere,” adding, “His fall can’t come soon enough, but will open more space for a future that looks nothing like the one he has in mind.”

Even if Optimus would, by some miracle, become a reality, its cold, brutally unfriendly design would appeal to anyone in search of an aesthetically attractive, sexually interesting artificial companion.

Don’t rush the future

Articles like Jumpstart’s may not seem egregiously inaccurate—simply a rehash of a couple of CES-related press releases with a click-baitish bow on top, but, similar to Musk’s deceptiveness, they might end up doing more harm than good, misinforming people about what a genuine artificial companion could and should be.

Ideally, that’s not just a hodge-podge of AI and clumsy mechanics but something capable of meeting a person’s emotional, physical, and, yes, sexual needs—and most of all, an achievable, realistic promise rather than cheap, shallow, manipulative fantasy.

Image Sources: Depositphotos

The post The Artificial Companions of Your Wet Dreams—or Broken Promises? appeared first on Future of Sex.

Do sexbots need to be life size to be physically and emotionally satisfying?

With the seemingly exponential rise in the number and types of hyper-realistic artificial companions currently available, it’s easy to forget their ancestors could fit in the palm of your hand—and their more technologically advanced descendants may do so again.

Even the famous Venus of Willendorf could have been a form of Paleolithic adult entertainment. To this day, many like playing sex games with sexually explicit miniatures, undoubtedly aided by new, sensually pliant plastics that give them the look and texture of their life size brethren.

Given the above, it’s only a matter of time until we have highly sophisticated, AI-operated, fully autonomous, small-scale artificial companions.

Small, exciting worlds

By now, you might be asking yourself why manufacture, let alone purchase and use, miniature artificial companions?

Financially, for the price of a single human-sized artificial companion, you could buy a wall-to-wall orgy of premium-quality erotic BJDs.

Of course, money isn’t everything. There’s also how closely both communities mirror each other, each embracing their own—yet, after further consideration, quite similar—passions. 

RECOMMENDED READ: Shape of Things to Come: The Exciting Future of Humanoid Sexbots

The difference is how artificial companions and erotic dolls are enjoyed.  The former is directly sexual, but the latter is more—well, like playing with dolls.

Which, when you think of it, may make them more akin to characters in an erotic video game, echoing erotic doll fanciers, which can be arousing as well as emotionally fulfilling.

Talking to Frame, celebrated BJD designer Pasha Setrova says, “In the end, dolls are still representative, but not necessarily aspirational. They are small portals to the unified aesthetic worlds that we can tap into via our imaginations, and hunt for in music, books, movies, and art.” 

Rush, previously a soldier and now an avid doll enthusiast, then proceeded to their journey from the former to the latter, “Femininity, it’s attractive to me. I found dolls [were] a safe way to explore that, to feel creative with that. It’s a way to be controlling without being possessive.”

Tiny dancers

Not to suggest replacing imagination with silicone, but as we develop artificial companions who feel, look, and act more naturally, the same technology could be packed into tomorrow’s miniature sex dolls.

Lifelike movements, likely controlled by either an onboard or wirelessly linked AI, with everything monitored by a pair of doll-eye-mounted nearly microscopic stereoscopic cameras—this is where things get really interesting.

Because when you connect all this to a set of haptic-tech-equipped VR rigs, rather than merely gazing down at a crowd of albeit realistically animated, sexually alluring, outrageously fetishwear-garbed, state-of-the-art dolls, you’d instead be one of them.

Worried you’d be too tiny to feel, hear, taste, or touch anything?  Don’t be, as specialized software, probably AI-driven, which would help fill in the gaps, not to mention tweaking your vision to make everyone look less like dolls and more like actual humans with the option to see them and yourself as dolls if that’s your thing.

With all this and more, tomorrow’s artificial companions—though they’d begun as sculpted clay, bundles of twigs, and clumps of straw—would be forever at our side or tucked into a convenient pocket, ready at a moment’s notice to be our dearest cherished love.

Size matters

To clarify, my use of small to describe tomorrow’s less-than-human-sized sexbots doesn’t mean mimicking the appearance or actions of a person below the age of consent.  

Unfortunately, this is less than true today, as the erotic side of the Ball Jointed Doll (BJD) community’s pronounced fondness for disturbingly young figures demonstrates. 

In all fairness, a respectable number of fans clearly prefer constructing, accessorizing, and interacting with mature-looking figures.

Hello dolly

Though these and other erotic possibilities miniature sexbots might delight us with in the years ahead, there’s something important I hope we never lose sight of.

Pasha Setrova and Rush understand it, as have billions of other people before or since: that often the key to happiness and even shame-free sexual fulfillment is play.

Image Sources:  Depositphotos

The post Off the Scale: Miniature Artificial Companions May Equal Large Pleasures appeared first on Future of Sex.