I’ve
been watching the Channel 4 drama series “Humans” with my wife. It’s about a
world very similar to our own, except that androids are commercially available
to do your housework, or care for you if you’re ill or provide other services
for the tense or frustrated or those who really want to have sex with a big
lump of human shaped plastic.
It
throws up some interesting questions about how robots might replace humans in
many jobs, whether they would legally count as people or machines and whether they
might gain consciousness, rise up against us and make us their slaves. I am not
sure the robot reality is as useful, dangerous or sexy as sci-f would have us
believe, but I can’t wait to find out.
In
the show the husband cracks and activates the sexual functions of his
(admittedly stupidly attractive) robot. His wife finds out and he gets into all
kinds of trouble. But is that really fair? Has he done anything wrong?
I
asked my wife if she’d mind me having sex with a robot that looked exactly like
the actor Gemma Chan and for some reason she said that she would mind that.
Would
it really count as cheating to just use a machine to milk me like an aphid?
It’s not actually a person and I bet if
I used a non-human shaped machine to provide the same service then divorce
wouldn’t be on the cards.
If my
wife came home to find me up to my apricots in the toaster, I think she might
be concerned for my mental health and perhaps ask me to buy a new toaster. But
would our marriage be over? I have checked the records and there is not a
single case of a couple annulling their union because the husband has put his
baguette in any kind of electrical crisping device. So why is a toaster
acceptable (I think that’s the conclusion we can definitely leap to) and a
specially designed sex robot (where no one would be risking carbonised dongles)
so wrong? It makes no sense.
I am
quite attracted to my Amstrad emailer phone. I like it because it is largely
redundant and undeniable clunky and was never of use to anyone (apart from Lord
Sugar who last week on Twitter claimed that he personally got £10million in his
pocket from sales – I don’t know if I a more impressed that he made such a
profit from such a terrible invention or that he can fit £10 million in his pocket). Would my wife be upset if I entered
more than an email address into it? Or delighted that it was no longer plugged
into the phone line and costing us 20p every time I checked my emails?
What
if I bought a dozen Amstrad email phones and stuck them together in a vaguely
human form, dressed it in sexy pants and stuck a picture of Gemma Chan on its
head? Oh suddenly that would be wrong would it? It makes no sense.
I am
not saying I’ve done that, although it would start to explain the impressive
sales of the device as it would take 12 Amstrad emailers to make a Gemma Chan
sized person (I am guessing).
So I
am disappointed that Humans seems (so far) to be coming down on the side that
having relations with a robot would be sleazy and sinister and count as
infidelity. Whilst all the men having sex with kitchen appliances are walking
around, unchastised with their heads held high, though possibly with a slight
limp.
What’s
the point in becoming the deputy speaker of the House of Lords if you can’t
spend your evenings snorting cocaine off of a prostitute’s breast whilst
wearing a bra? That’s the only reason I’d want the job. Good to know that the Houses of Parliament
are now free of people who’ve taken cocaine or been with a prostitute. Good riddance
to this rotten apple who tarnishes their spotless reputation.
