Sex robots, data protection and AI – that makes you sit up and take notice

When it comes to data protection, very few people click on “agree” until they have read through everything carefully. When it comes to sex robots and data protection, however, many more take notice. This includes the employees of the Lower Saxony Ministry of Economic Affairs, the Niedersachsen.next digital agency and Leibniz Universität Hannover, who organized the event “Sex robots: When AI seduces – Legal and ethical considerations”. In an interview with heise online, IT and data protection lawyer and robot ethics lecturer Iris Phan talks about sex robots, data protection and AI.

Why are sex robots so suitable for teaching people about data protection?

Iris Phan: Sex robots arouse curiosity. All data that is somehow related to our sex life awakens a very natural protective instinct in us; this is one of the most intimate spaces we have. In the past, there was often this attitude of “I have nothing to hide”, but now most people are more aware.

What exactly is a sex robot?

First of all, there are sex dolls in the conventional sense, coated with plastic, silicone, or latex. Cameras are then built into the robot's head to recognize the user, microphones to be able to hold a conversation, and additional sensors in intimate areas to recognize certain patterns. The sensor technology is of course particularly exciting, as we are familiar with cameras and microphones from many other devices that we surround ourselves with, such as smartphones or voice assistants. Sensors in a vagina insert can record the speed or frequency of use, for example. With this proverbial pattern recognition, most people start to think about whether they really want to disclose this data.

A question that also arises with smart sex toys – A few years ago, wearables came onto the market that could track the frequency of thrusting, for example. Many toys can be connected via an app – What do you think about this from a data protection perspective - are our vibrators spying on us?

From a data protection perspective, I would advise against linking them via an app. There have already been a few data breaches, the data is totally exciting, people can be blackmailed with it, it's lucrative.

Do we know where this intimate data ends up?

It's probably easiest to deduce from the manufacturers' production facilities. The big players are based in Japan, South Korea and North America – These are all third countries in terms of the GDPR, some of which have a comparable level of data protection, but at least the servers are not located here. Many of the manufacturers of the plastic with which the robots are coated are based in China.

Another exciting question is that of personal rights, which needs to be renegotiated, especially with AI – I'm thinking of Scarlett Johansson, who took legal action against OpenAI after the AI voice assistant voice was too similar to hers. What is the current legal situation? For example, could you use messages from your ex-partner to design a robot or chatbot in their image?

That depends. Chats are only copyrighted works under certain conditions, and if the result is only used within your four walls, it may be unpleasant and creepy, but not yet illegal. Anything that is made public is, of course, a completely different story.

Important ethical and legal questions arise when it comes to activities carried out on sex robots that are socially undesirable or illegal in humans, such as violence or paraphilia. Do the dolls serve more as a kind of “gateway drug” or do they have a valve function?

There is no general answer to this question, as there is very little research on taboo subjects. For example, almost nobody would voluntarily come out as a paedophile in a study setting. And scientists who conduct research on this topic are often threatened or vilified. The topic is highly politically charged, so we can expect some backlash. In Germany, a law was passed shortly before the 2021 federal election that makes the import, distribution, and possession of childlike-looking sex dolls, among other things, subject to relatively harsh prison sentences of up to five years. And this is “only” a doll, we determine the intended purpose. Reborn dolls, for example, are as lifelike as possible and equipped with all body orifices, but are used to deal with trauma, which we naturally also view very differently in moral terms.

This example and, above all, the comparison with the reborn doll show that politicians have received little or no scientific advice at this point and have merely reacted reflexively to something unknown. Unfortunately, the reaction seems less than rational and well-thought-out, rather as if they had encountered a voodoo doll.

(mho)