I was hoping #5 was a Roomba. Oh well.

Is it bad if I want one of these? It reminds me of something from Gibson's bridge trilogy. Sorta like, junkpunk or povertypunk or something.

Perhaps some sort of "One Bicycle Per African" program is in order! I would buy five!

Chris @ 26:
I only meant it in the sense that the human end of the relationship has total power and that may be some of the appeal. Also, I was thinking of robots in the classical sense, and as to exactly why they are fetishised. I guess I was working under the assumption that everyone who would own one would be aware of the robot's limitations and the reality of the "relationship".

You make a pretty good point though. Usually people stop having imaginary friends or stuffed animals after a certain age; the ability to suspend disbelief and empathize with an inanimate object decreases with age, and increases with the reality of the simulation. So the more animate and reactive they are the more likely an emotional relationship could form. This would be an altogether different kind of user/owner to one who is just using it because it is a robot.

#10: Robots are fetished for their total submissiveness, one they are uniquely suited to; they can't (for the moment) think or feel the repercussions of a totally dominating relationship, or offer any resistance unless they are programmed to. Thus they are prefect (sex)slaves, even in the sense that they were purpose built to be slaves! You might say that in a healthy interhuman relationship desires like this can be be fulfilled, but without compromise (except in extreme 24/7 BDSM relationships) they come at the cost of respect within the relationship.

I actually don't really know what I'm getting at besides the point that sex robots can fill a definite human gap, but as to whether whether the inevitable dominant/submissive human dichotomy is a good characteristic is debatable... I'm pretty sure we are stuck with it until we either achieve perfect human equality(the exact antithesis of our current state) or a certain variant of the singularity, which might actually be a prerequisite.