xkcd: Android girlfriend + future sex at LeWeb 2009

Click through to read the rest, you will not regret it.

After spending most of my day editing translated transcripts (English to Viennese to English ::sigh) from a talk I gave last year on “technology and the erotic” for an international sex and technology conference, it’s appropriate that JT simultaneously sent me xkcd’s Android Girlfriend comic. The mouse-over makes a really good point; it’s what I’m trying to warn you people about. Think sex with machines is consumer-driven in its desire, adoption and applications? Yes, it is, but throw in AI, put her on your phone with its touch screen, let her use different bodies (like a RealDoll) and… I’m just sayin’. This is all like, so last year (literally). Give the bot girls libidos and autonomous brains and you’re all in trouble. I promise. I’m working on an army in my garage/lab right now. Resistance is futile. Learn to use your iPhone with your tongue and you have a higher chance for survival.

If you want to hear what I had to say in my re-translation today, here is a direct link to the MP3 (1 hour long). The previous year after presenting about sex and tech, Mark Dery came up to me right after my talk and excitedly told me I was “an anti-evangelist, evangelist” for sex and technology. Yes, I freaked out quietly inside because he’s one of my heroes.

Which leads me to — GREAT news: today I was invited to present at LeWeb in Paris this December. Topic: The Future of Sex. I’m going to squeal with excitement and run in tight little giggly gleeful circles any second now. Looks like I’ll be in good company — I already see friends in the lineup…