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The creation of artificially intelligent sex robots that resemble humans has provoked a heated debate about the social and health consequences.

Meanwhile, the market for talking and moving robots made for sexual pleasure is on the rise, with makers from across the world selling them for thousands of pounds.

One implication discussed by experts is their capacity to induce addiction to sex.

Psychological therapist Dr Thaddeus Birchard told Daily Star Online that life-like robots featuring AI could be another outlet for sex addicts to express their compulsion.

Dr Birchard, clinical director of the Marylebone Centre for Psychological Therapies, said a sex addict is comparable to an alcoholic in that they’re seeking escapism.

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Although cyborgs might not necessarily increase sex addiction, Dr Birchard said, they serve the same purpose as alcohol for people with drinking issues.

“It would just be another way of expressing sexual activity or addiction,” Dr Birchard, author of Overcoming Sexual Addiction – A Self Help Guide, said.

“Sex addiction is a way to anaesthetise hard to bear feeling states.

“These include, but are not limited to, loneliness, shame, boredom, and stress.

“It has the same function as alcohol for problem drinkers.

“It is an escape from the self. This is the psychology behind it.”

(Image: LUMIDOLLS)

Dr Birchard said of the estimated 1,000 men his clinic, in Marylebone, London, has treated, he is yet give therapy to anyone “who used robots and dolls”.

If someone was to seek treatment for such an addiction, he said, the therapy methods would be the same.

He added: “I would use the interventions that we use in working with anyone with a sexually compulsive behaviour.”

Another therapist, who did not wish to be named, said “it’s impossible to know” if erotic cyborgs will increase the level of sex addictions.

Joel Snell, a robotics expert from Kirkwood College in Iowa, has previously told Daily Star Online that sex robots “may become addictive”.

He said: “Sexbots would always be available and could never say no, so addictions would be easy to feed.

“People will rearrange their lives to accommodate their addictions.”

One day, sex robots could become even better at sex than humans, fuelling demand for them.

Snell added: “Because they would be programmable, sexbots would meet each individual user's needs.”

(Image: LUMIDOLLS)

Companies making sex robots, including US-based Realbotix and Synthea Amatus from Spain, have made claims about the potential health and social benefits of their creations.

Matt McMullen, CEO and founder of Realbotix, said his main goal as a sex robot maker is to give joy to people who “have difficulty forming traditional relationships”.

Replacing the prostitution industry with sex robots has also been cited as an ambition by McMullen, one of the world’s preeminent producers of erotic cyborgs.

Artificial intelligence expert Dr David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots, has also said androids will "significantly reduce the incidents of STIs".

But academics and the scientific community have criticised sex robot producers, whose top-end androids with the ability to speak can cost up to £11,000.

A groundbreaking paper studying the supposed health benefits of sex robots has been published by two researchers in the BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health journal.

Dr Chantal Cox-George, a doctor and sexual health expert at St George's University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Susan Bewley, of Women's Health Academic Centre, King's College London, looked at the arguments for and against the sex robot industry.

Despite lots of interest from scientists, academics and ethicists, the researchers were unable to find a single study on the health implications of sexbots.

No evidence was found that sex robots could have any health benefits whatsoever.