Human–Robot Companionship: Cultural Ideas, Limitations, and Aspirations. An Analysis of Sex Robot Marketing Videos

Abstract

As society moves swiftly towards incorporating an increased number of social robots, the need for a deeper cultural understanding of companionship as a critical social aspect of human–robot connection is urgent. This cultural study examines how three of the most popular and publicly available sex robot marketing videos mobilise the meaning of companionship. Videos of "Roxxxy", “Harmony”, and “Emma” were examined employing a social semiotic discourse analysis based on a long history of identifying how advertisements tap into social and cultural ideals. Companionship is identified as: (i) enjoyed through attention, reliability, usefulness, support, trust, and kindness; (ii) including ideas of long-term commitment and endurance through the mundane, every day, and ordinary aspects of life; (iii) occurring where the meanings of connection for humans and robots are conflated even though they differ for humans and technology; and (iv) a vulnerability for both robot and human. Furthermore, the representations of robot companions remain limited to stereotypical concepts of women; viewers are positioned as desiring a product that claims agency but has none, and is marketed ‘as good as’ a human woman. In all, the representations are complex and far too simple—simple because this is an ideological model of companionship and complex because the ideas of technology are conflated with human–human ideals of companionship. Where technological design aspires towards a better future for humans, there is an urgency to move beyond the limited anthropomorphic cultural concepts presently aspired to in the design and marketing of companion robots.