Robot Performers in VR Films?

Image credit: czechvr

Zoay is a sex robot.  She has a well-developed artificial intelligence.  While strutting down a Miami sidewalk, she sees a sign advertising work for an actress in a VR porn film.

She reasons it through: I can do what a real woman can.  I’ve been paid to have sex off-camera. Therefore, why not get paid to have sex on camera? Besides, it didn’t say human female performer wanted.

Sex Can Be Automated

In the future, will porn stars and starlets have to compete with robots for their very livelihoods?  When a user puts on a VR headset, will he or she often be watching a very realistic robot having sex?

Experts are saying yes.  By the year 2036, a McKinsey & Company report from 2016 says, just under half of U.S. jobs will be able to be done by robots.  The report was produced by experts analyzing 800 occupations and 2,000 discrete duties.

We can all see that having sex is one of these tasks, since we’re kind of there already.  Holograms qualify as robotic—automated and non-human—performers, and the technology is being put into play already.  Some people feel that the hologram/holodeck mode will be where the use of non-human performers works best, because it will allow for customization, a la Second Life—pointier breasts, narrower hips, etc.

However, movies produced with robots functioning basically as human performers now do could probably involve user input too, possibly in menus outside the scene itself.  In any case, one imagines the studio would buy many Zoays and, ideally, program them to perform a scene.  It’s unclear if actually directing robots would be on the table, but it could be by maybe…2036…whenever the AI is that good.

The obvious attraction to the producers of VR porn would be the lower cost.  However, at the risk of stereotyping the average porn star, those using robots would also solve problems of tardiness, no-shows, drugs, temper tantrums, etc.

Currently, Robotix, which brings us Harmony, a sex bot for purchase (available Apr. 15), is working with a company called Hanson Robotics to make their bots more realistic and intelligent and is aiming to produce VR content with the resulting bots.

Hiring Knowledge Workers

What’s interesting about the approach of presenting, essentially, ones and zeros to a user, is that it reacts to a world in which people are losing jobs due to animation by creating new jobs, at least for computer programmers, animators, AI experts, etc.  Start learning to code now, because automation might end up meaning more technical jobs rather than less jobs.

Futurist Ray Kurzweil likes to say that in the future, everything will be information.  He’s basically talking about a world in which we program our bodies to digest food or get rid of bacteria; we program cars to drive; and in fact, manufacture the same cars with enormous 3D printers, which depend on computer software to function.  The worker in this scenario is Peter Drucker’s Knowledge Worker (which extends as far as doctors and teachers)—someone who performs mental tasks that are hard to replicate with machines.

Porn stars’ personalities will be increasingly important. Image credit: WANKZVR

All the ones that are could go to robots in the world of VR porn.  Robot camera men, grips, etc.  The conventional wisdom is that for anyone in the industry, particularly the performers, adaptation is necessary, but possible.

The idea is to do whatever it is that machines can’t.  For at least a decade or two, this will be pretty easy—the actress just has to have charm.  AI is nowhere near allowing a robot to replicate a good, sexy personality yet. But doing things like transitioning from movies to live cam shows (which robots absolutely can’t do and probably won’t be able to for decades), even more feature dancing, etc. may be options for porn stars.

The Premium on Personhood

One is tempted to suspect, though, that there will always be a market for flesh-and-blood actresses for no other reason that they are real humans.  In this scenario, while being stripped of a job because what one does can be done by a machine, one is still paid a premium for one’s humanity.

Will humans be seen as elite as compared to robots? Image credit: NaughtyAmericaVR

Assuming robots are labeled as such—or that we can tell that’s what they are, which is the case now—we’ll always know one from a human.  Nothing says people will forget about the real beating heart inside the performer, something that, to some, makes porn such a decadent enterprise.

Predictions of the obsolescence of anything are often premature.  However, adapting or dying is a very real challenge for porn stars as for anyone.