The fact that so many people—and we have no reason to assume that they were not reasonable people—thought that it is a real person is quite a testament to the progress made in the development of sex dolls.

It is a business that immediately makes one think of its ethics, and also it seems to sit well in imaginings of dystopian future scenarios.

On both counts, we have more questions than answers. Our helpline gets around five calls a day around sex dolls, with potential customers happy to buy something for six to ten thousand rupees. And that’s when we make no representations to say that we have these products. Seems like it’s a lucrative business, but the law in India marks down selling anything with the physical likeness of a human being for this purpose as crime under the IPC. That is clearly enough to not get into this ‘business.’

Then there’s the question about a dystopian future in which people are well past relating to other people, and so something as intimate (and essential) as sex becomes a problem to solve through robots. Are we headed there? Well, we hope not, and if we are our money would be on a Westworld-like rebellion by the AI powered humanoids.

We shall of course keep thinking about this space, and what it represents, and share more.