Friday, December 12, 2008

Why Waste Robotic Vaginal Sensors?

This story is kind of pathetic and disturbing at the same time. There's a 33 year-old Ontario computer programmer, Le Trung, who lives with his parents and has constructed Aiko:
Aiko is a 32-kilogram female android that Trung began building in August of last year.

She is just under five feet tall, has brown eyes that can distinguish 300 faces per second and speaks 13,000 English and Japanese phrases.

Her skin is made of silicone and her insides are made of an expensive collection of wires, motors and various sensors.

In total, Trung has spent more than $20,000 developing Aiko, maxing out three credit cards in the process.

So far it's not all that creepy (though her hands look pretty weird). Here's where it goes off the rails:
But for all the attention that Aiko has garnered, one topic area has elicited the most questions: Anything and everything to do with sex.

And Trung has answered every question that he has been asked.

"Does she have breasts? I will say yes. Does she have nipples? I will say yes. Does she have a vagina? I will say yes. Are there sensors there? I will say yes," he said.

"Do I sleep with her? No."
So...the guy builds this thing with nipples and a vagina, with sensors, but claims he isn't fooling around with it. Uh...right. What are the sensors for? To let you know when the toast is done? Or when the mail has been dropped off?

And then there's this bit of stupidity:
"If you talk dirty to her, she will talk dirty back," Trung said, admitting that an R-rated vocabulary was an unforeseen part of Aiko's development.
Right. We're supposed to believe that he's built an android that is learning vocabulary its builder didn't foresee. If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you.

This guys sounds like he needs professional therapy. I'm serious.