Futurist Ian Pearson believes that robots will begin to appear in people’s sex lives as early as 2025. He predicts that machines will not be able to completely take away even this «work» from people. At least not until 2050.
Futurist Ian Pearson believes that robots will begin to appear in people’s sex lives as early as 2025. He predicts that machines will not be able to completely take away even this «work» from people. At least not until 2050.
This is stated in the material of the Daily Mail. It is noted that Pearson, who has a doctorate in physical and mathematical sciences, boasts an 85% accuracy of his predictions. He claims that by 2025 women could overtake men in the adoption of sex robots — partly because they already have a technological head start.
«Vibrators have been around for over a century, but now the sex toy industry is producing not just standalone devices but teledildons that bring all the fun and functionality of computer technology and networking to sex», — Pearson said. The term «teledildonics» first appeared in 1975 to refer to mechanical sex toys that operate remotely, via the Internet or otherwise.
According to some surveys, 63% of women admit that they already use or would like to use sex toys, and 40% admit that virtual reality would make sex more fun and enjoyable.
The market for humanoid sex bots, which can cost upwards of $15,000, is traditionally thought to be dominated by men, but other analysts also suggest that this gender balance could change.
«I think it’s men who should be worried. It’s entirely possible that robots could surpass them,» says Harvard-educated mathematician and data scientist Dr. Katie O’Neill.
According to at least one industry survey, women, and men are already approaching parity in sex doll usage, suggesting that this gender revolution may indeed be on the horizon.
Although only 17,4% of people reported having had sex with a robot at all, according to Bedbible data from 2024, the gender gap was just 1,3% — 17,8% for men and 16,5% for women.
Dr. Pearson believes that economic factors will likely still hinder the widespread adoption of robots in the near term.
«While some people will enthusiastically embrace sex with a robot without a relationship as soon as they can afford it, as early as 2025, it won’t have much chance of replacing sex with a human altogether by 2050,» the futurist noted.
The change will start with virtual sex, which «most people» will have by 2030, partly due to the rise in connected devices and the nature of remote work and relationships, he argued in 2015.
«Some people can only use regular VR without sex toys. By 2035, the toys will be better designed, and most people will be well-accustomed to having sex in VR by then, so they will buy a collection of sex toys that will interact with VR,» Pearson believes.
He said many people will still have concerns about sex with robots, but by mid-century, 25 years after 2025, «the disgust of humanity will gradually evaporate.» Feeling comfortable with robotic sexual partners will be helped by advances in AI, which will give robots enhanced sensations and «start to become friends with strong emotional bonds.»
In 2015, Pearson noted that sex robots have already appeared, but so far they are «not very good» and «very far from a real sex robot.»
«It’s a small market today, and it will be small in 2025,» he predicts. In 2024, in a world of about 8 billion people, only about 156 sex robots were sold every day. The $201 million sex robot industry represents just 0.5 percent of the $37 billion global sex toy industry each year.
Dr. Pearson still makes mistakes sometimes, for example, he overestimated the development of AI.
«It hasn’t progressed as fast as I thought. At the beginning of the century, AI was developing very quickly, so we had predictions that by 2015 we would have conscious machines that were smarter than humans. I would estimate that AI is probably developing about 35% or 40% slower than we expected,» he says.
Recall that last year, similar predictions were made by Mo Gawdat, former business director of Google X, who also said that sex robots with artificial intelligence could eventually replace human partners in bed.
«If you think a few years ahead and think about Neuralink and other ways to connect directly to your nervous system, why would you need another being at all?», — he said.
