Perhaps a step towards sex bots?
[Bender]You’ve got metal fever, boy![/Bender]
Sadly, the robots still have no noses.
People will think you’re robosexual.
I better start saving my pennies, and buy one the day it comes out, but by that time, I will be too old to enjoy it. I’m sure the beneficiaries of my will would appreciate it if I left my sex robot to them.
The one thing no-one ever explains in these kind of threads is, who’s gonna clean the sexbots?
Well don’t you think that it’d be a simple matter to program them so that they clean themselves? (Remember they could be made more flexible than a human being, so they could do it cat-like.)
Can I get an “ick” here, people?
Aaack. Now there’s an image I’m gonna have a hard time getting out of my brain.
…although I could see how some might like it as a fetish…
:: twitch ::
I was imagining a disposable inner liner or something. Which would still be an unpleasant job to remove and replace.
If there was a very advanced technology of nano-scale membrane construction and selective sequestration, the sexbot’s internal membranes could clean themselves by capturing and removing all substances from the previous encounter, and then lay down a fresh coat of lubricant. This would also be a good way to capture DNA samples for forensic analysis.
There are two of them … They Clean each other … Naked … In a bubble bath
Why didn’t I think of that? Clearly I’m not perverse enough. 
Aaah, a mind is such a beatiful thing to scar! 
:: shika shika shika ::
(That’s then sound of sandpaper on the inside of my skull…)
I wrote an essay on the problems with designing sex bots follow the link and you can read it, but it’s got some R-rated illos.
My problem with the article in question is not that it’s so important for the robot to feel as humans do, though undoubtedly that would be a good thing. The real key would be to make a skin that felt human to the touch of other humans. By all accounts, Real Dolls (google the term if you’re interested, there’s also a link in my essay) have come pretty close in the respect, though I’ve never touched one myself.
As for self-cleaning, I wrote a bit in my Jetta 3000 story that had a robobabe going to the bathroom after serving her master, and ejecting her mouth and vagina units for cleaning in the sink, which she did by hand. Would make a KILLER scene in a movie.
ahem…
Sadly, the robots still have no noses.
Looking for the follow-up line here people!
Grandma?!
So obviously they smell terrible!
I always imagined that sexbots would go into some kind of recharge/cleaning station when not being used, sort of like the ones for those electric razors.
In the future, Little Sister may be f***ing you, while Big Brothr is watching. 
As for cleaning themselves like cats… meow, baby, meow.
:::sigh:::
You just ruin everything.
That essay has convinced me that you are not simply and obsessed pervert. You are an obsessed pervert with research and critical thinking skills. By Og, one of us!
I agree. Heck, have women getting the same units implanted as cosmetic surgery and you’ve got a Gibson novel on your hands. Or in the sink.
BTW- I recommend Stainslau Lem’s Cyberiad. One of the stories deals with the question of when a simulation becomes indistiguishable from the real thing (though the story deals with giving a tyrant a kingdom of simulated subjects rather than robobabes)