Sexbots will become “capable of mutuality in sexual and intimate relationships,” she predicted in a paper published in the journal Robotics. And as humans will have created these faculties, it is our duty to look out for our quasi-humans.

These machines will be full of paradoxes, Mackenzie wrote. They will be manufactured but sentient; self-aware but designed solely to satisfy our needs as intimate partners.

Mackenzie told Techxplore.com: “Sexbots will be customized to love us, acquire deep knowledge of us as part of the self-customization process and will be able to suffer.”