bility to experience pain and that which does not do not seem to invoke equal moral weight.

While this may seem common sense between the smart kettle and the sex robot, as we would appear to want the latter to possess some degree of consideration over the former, it becomes more problematic between two cases of a similar type – such as two sex robots, one possessing the capacity for pain and the other not. In this case, the former is worthy of moral consideration, it must be considered capable of some degree of consent and deserving of certain treatment. The latter, however, is not, resurrecting issues concerning objectification. After all, if the end goal of the development of sex robots is as Levy (2010) states, solely to be responsive and receptive to human sexual desires, giving them a degree of respect may well be seen as getting in the way. Instead of provoking trouble, the programmer may well decide to simply bypass the option to install pain sensors, reducing the sex robot once more to an object, and once more raising issues concerning objectification and the degradation of women. Thus, if we accept that to avoid socially negative ethical consequences the weak AI must be afforded some, even if limited, moral consideration, the issue is raised over whether it can be considered properly capable of consenting.

This essay has briefly covered a broad number of topics including the objectification of women, the issue of robot intelligence and an appeal to arguments made in favour of animal rights to argue that the issue of consent within robotics, particularly concerning weak AI within the sex trade, needs to be confronted head on. As the literature on the issue is comparatively small and technology increasingly involves in this direction, it appears imperative that in order to avoid provoking other ethical issues this unique problem posed by the presence of AI should be answered without appeal to the current, but changing, object status of robots.