Ministers are “lagging behind” in efforts to tackle sex robots, experts have warned, amid concerns they could "make women interchangeable with technology".

Human-like robots are sold as substitutes for women and are marketed as “companions”, “girlfriends” or “wives”, a coalition of academics, abuse victims and activists have claimed and MPs and ministers are ignorant of the potential dangers.

“At a time when pornography, prostitution and child exploitation is facilitated and proliferated by digital technology turning it into a global profitable industry; these products further promote the objectification of the female body and as such constitute a further assault on human intimacy,” the campaign Against Sex Robots said in an open letter.

The “loudest voices” shaping government decisions are businesses and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts who have an interest in curtailing any attempts at regulation, the letter said.

Dr Kathleen Richardson, Professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at De Montfort University Leicester, organised the letter and warned technology is fuelling isolation.

“We are moving towards a society where people are spending more time alone with machines, where the future is being set up for us to be alone with our mechanical devices,” she told a robotics conference organised by the Christian public policy charity CARE.