August 31, 2026

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF AI VAGINAS? AI vaginas, customizable personalities and fake bruises: the sex doll market is booming. Does it matter how the dolls are treated?

Two weeks ago, two distressed citizens stumbled across what they assumed was the mangled corpse of a woman, stuffed into a suitcase in a small town about three hours south of Sydney. They called the local police, who in turn issued a statement that a body in a suitcase had been found. The wider public waited sombrely for Australia’s tally of dead women to tick up by one.

But instead, a day later, after forensic analysis, it was determined that the woman in question wasn’t a woman at all. The “body” was that of a sex doll, marked with fake bruises, left to rot on a lonely dirt road. In Australia, as in the UK and some other European countries, it is not illegal to own a sex doll unless it resembles a child. Given the doll’s seemingly mature presentation, police investigations were called off.

The sex doll trade is flourishing. A 2026 market analysis estimates that the global market was valued at US$6.6bn in 2025, with a projection that it will more than double, to US$13.4bn, by 2033. As the market booms, and involves increasingly lifelike facsimiles of women, does how these dolls get treated matter?

And when a sex doll with “bruises” and rain-matted hair is tucked into a suitcase and left on a roadside, should we be concerned?

Yes, actually. Very much so:

As the above image illustrates, the Tyrell Corporation wouldn’t lose much collective sleep over the current quality and sophistication of android sex dolls. Meanwhile, Skynet isn’t yet bringing its A-game, when it comes to robotics. Jeremy Clarkson writes: I don’t fear AI but a robot hyena’s no laughing matter.

We are told that the next major financial crash will certainly be caused by AI because while it’s very clever, it doesn’t understand insanity. So when there’s panic selling, it will panic sell and never once think “hang on a minute, this is madness”, which is what a human would do. And has done many times over the years. Or would it do that? And if it could, why would it, because if it gets rich, what’s it going to buy? A Ferrari? And how’s it going to drive that, when it’s in a box?

It’s going to need some kind of body. And it’s the same story when it comes to this business of taking our jobs. Because while it may know what’s wrong with a patient by examining his blood work, it needs form to be able to lift him on to the operating table. It also needs form if it wants to mend your fuse box or paint your front door or make a pushchair. It’s all very well being super clever, but it’s a bit pointless if you live in an iPhone and you don’t have opposable thumbs, or even arms.

of which brings me on to the robot Olympics that were held last week in China. Now I touched on the hilarity of robot sport back in April when I wrote about some robot running races, but, on the amusement-o-meter, the Olympics were in another league.

Yes, one of them broke Usain Bolt’s 100m world record but they had to put crash pads on the finish line because it couldn’t slow down. And then there was the football, which was like watching a bunch of eight-year-olds. They all ran after the ball constantly and only very occasionally did one of them land an actual kick. In the right direction? Not usually, no.

With the athletics, they all looked like humans but only humans that had ingested large quantities of LSD. They were so uncoordinated that frankly, I wouldn’t allow any of them to so much as load my dishwasher.

Also in news of robotics: ICE Is Eyeing Another Huge Tech Purchase. The purchase in question:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll