In two recent movies, Her and Ex Machina, filmmakers explored an intriguing concept: whether humans will fall in love with and want to have sex with AI or robots. Of course, this isn’t the first time people have lusted after artificial human entities – you can find that story all the way back to the Greek myth of Pygmalion. But as AI and robotics get more and more advanced, some have claimed that robots designed for love and sex are finally close to reality. In his book Love and Sex with Robots, for instance, David Levy estimated that marrying robots will be normalised by 2050.

Yet while it might sometimes seem like we’re on the cusp of a new sexual revolution, the truth is more complicated. Building and designing robots for sex is going to be harder than most people realise, making them convincing without being creepy will be a huge hurdle, and overcoming the barriers the sex industry faces for funding will be enormous. The idea that a company might come along any day now and make an affordable and convincing sex robot ignores the reality of both research and regulation.