“So far, we don’t have any ethical guidelines. And I figure that sex robots exist for about 10 to 15 years now and no one thinks about ethical guidelines beforehand. Maybe this development rises from the technical department. They think that they just develop and then give the responsibility to the user. And they don’t talk beforehand to medical, psychologist, the legal or the ethical department. They literally just develop.”
For the project, we interviewed Iris Phan, IT legal expert and science ethicist, who is currently working for the University of Leibniz IT services. During the interview she discussed the collaboration between different departments during the production of sex robots, and the importance of medical, legal, and ethical departments to work together with the technical department during the development of the robots. She also mentioned how the public can contribute to the debate.
“It’s not an openly discussed topic in public. There are companies that build, develop and sell them. If there aren’t any legal requirements, I guess, they won’t make any development referred to guidelines or ethical considerations.”
Furthermore, she discussed the requirements of the legal framework in different countries around the world. Often the speed of development of sex robots is influenced by the legal framework and laws in the country.
With her IT knowledge she also questioned the data protection behind the sex robots, as they collect data. With the GDPR in place in the European Union, this could be one of the reasons the development of sex toys or robots is different in the USA, Europa, and East Asian countries.
Thank you very much Iris Phan for participating in the expert interview for the project and sharing your knowledge on the topic IT security and legal rights. Find her here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iris-phan-72596664/?originalSubdomain=de
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