---
title: "Researcher Warns That Sex Robots May Cause Psychological Damage"
description: "Researchers warn that AI-enabled sex robots marketed as replacements for human relationships could cause psychological damage."
date: "2020-02-17"
modified: "2020-02-21"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/sex-robots-cause-psychological-damage"
categories:
  - "Robotics"
  - "Robots and Machines"
tags:
  - "Psychology"
  - "sex robots"
  - "the digest"
---

# Researcher Warns That Sex Robots May Cause Psychological Damage

![Researchers and ethicists are once again pushing back against AI-enabled sex robots marketed as a replacement for human relationships.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/sex-robots-cause-psychological-damage.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Image via Pixabay/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

## Red Flags

Once again, scientists are calling for a moratorium on sex robots built to [replace human relationships](<https://futurism.com/doctors-prescribe-sex-robots>).

Unless authorities impose strong regulations on the budding industry, [experts told the *BBC*](<https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51330261>) they can see a future where robots built to [look like children](<https://futurism.com/researchers-are-worried-about-child-sex-robots>) or programmed to play the part of a rape victim could enable sexual violence against real-world victims. It's a disturbing image — the latest in a [long line of warnings](<https://futurism.com/sex-robots-health>) that lifelike sex robots could be psychologically dangerous.

## Who Benefits?

If AI-driven sex robots will exist in the world, Duke University researcher Christine Hendren told the *BBC* that they ought to at least be built according to rigorous ethical standards.

"Some robots are programmed to protest, to create a rape scenario," Hendren told *BBC*. "Some are designed to look like children. One developer of these in Japan is a self-confessed pedophile, who says that this device is a prophylactic against him ever hurting a real child. But does that normalize and give people a chance to practice these behaviors that should be treated by just stamping them out?"

## Toxic Expectations

Kathleen Richardson, a robotics and AI ethicist at Leicester University, wants sex robot companies to be banned from marketing them as life partners or replacements for actual relationships, a common selling point for the ungodly tech.

"A relationship with a girlfriend is based on intimacy, attachment and reciprocity. These are things that can't be replicated by machines," Richardson told the *BBC*. "Are we going to move into a future where we keep normalizing the idea of women as sex objects?"

**READ MORE:** [Sex robots may cause psychological damage](<https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51330261>) \[*BBC*\]

**More on sex robots:** *[We Have No Idea What Having Sex With Robots Might Do to Us](<https://futurism.com/sex-robots-health>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)