Harper’s Magazine
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Ghosting the Machine
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Ghosting the Machine

Although video porn, webcams, and teledildonics have existed for decades, rapid advancements in virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics mean that a new era of digisexuality is—please forgive us—coming. In the May issue, Sam Lipsyte explores the “warm, sticky horse carcass” of technological intimacy with a trip to the Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas, where he meets a sex robot named Emma, as well as two scholars who’ve coined the term digisexuality, a new type of identity. He joins web editor Violet Lucca for a discussion of technology’s potential to both offer succor and create stupor, the ethical questions raised by child sexbots and non-consenting AIs, and how the future of sexuality might be monetized by tech moguls. Read Lipsyte’s article: https://harpers.org/archive/2022/05/ghosting-the-machine-humans-robots-and-the-new-sexual-frontier-sam-lipsyte/ This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins

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Harper’s Magazine
The Harper’s Podcast
Since 1850, Harper’s Magazine has provided its readers with a unique perspective on the issues that drive our national conversation, featuring writing from some of the most promising to most distinguished names in literature–from Barbara Ehrenreich to Rachel Kushner. Every week, host Violet Lucca joins her colleagues and contributing writers to provide listeners with a deep dive into these topics and the craft of long-form narrative journalism.
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