Ethical and Legal Implications of Sex Robot: An Islamic Perspective

Abstract

Technologically, robots have been identified as useful resources in all aspect of human endeavor due to the numerous advantages associated with such system. They reduce labor hardship in several manufacturing processes, help in dirty operation and dangerous mission to human life, ease several domestic activities and generally improve efficiency in many engineering processes. However, several ethical and legal issues have been identified in the literatures with respect to applications of such system in various aspects of human activities. One of such area that is less attended to in the literature is in the application of robot in sex activities. The birth of sex robot has introduced several dimensions into the concept of sex which implicitly has several ethical and legal implications. This study first review the state of the art in sex robot and its associated ethical and legal issues. Secondly the issue is evaluated from Islamic perspective together with position of Islamic law (Shariah) towards the deployment of robot in sexual activities. The social effect of robot sex to the institution of marriage in particular is examined. The study will apply qualitative and quantitative methods throughout the discussion and analysis. The test samples and data were taken from selected countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia including in Malaysia. In the end, useful suggestion would be suggested in the finding in order to discover undocumented facts and experts’ view towards the robot sex. Also, the outcome of this study is expected to unraveled the mystery of sex robot and provides solution to the robot sex.

Keywords: Sex Robot, Shariah, Code of ethics, United Nations