One of the difficulties of having a long-distance relationship is the fact that you and your partner can’t be together physically. As it stands there are several sex toys that allows users to pleasure their partner remotely, and it seems that in addition to that, you could potentially even “kiss” your partner even if you’re halfway across the world.
How is this possible? This is thanks to a device called the Kissenger that was created by PhD student Emma Yann Zhang and was presented during the Love and Sex with Robots Conference. How it works is that the user will kiss a silicon “lip” at the bottom of the device, and with the use of high precision sensors, it will register the user’s lips movements. From there miniature linear actuators will replicate those movements on the other device, thus simulating a kiss.
While it might seem like the next step in creating love/sex robots that can mimic human-like actions, Zhang said in her report that ““this research will not attempt to conclude whether it is ethically acceptable to have intimate relationships with robots.” However given that one AI expert believes that humans could eventually marry robots, this might not necessarily be the worst feature to have.
Kissenger’s creators plan to put the device through the Turing test in which lab subjects will see if they can differentiate a kiss from a human or a kiss from a robot. As it stands the Kissenger is not available for purchase, and Zhang will be continuing her research at the City University London lab.
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