As a child of convinced vegetarian parents, I always had an awkward feeling in the supermarket when I left the fresh and colorful food section behind me, strolled through the diary food department and finally arrived at the somewhat hidden butchery section. Often, the meat section would be at a dead end or even in a partly separated area. Every time, an eerie mix of shame and guilt overcame me and forced me back to the cozy section with chocolate bars and cereals.

Years later, I realized that the architecture of a video shop was just as strategic as the layout of a supermarket. The fresh and colorful fruits were the fresh released family films, the diary section would be dramas and series whereas the meat section was the hidden room full of porn. The strange mix of shame and revolting feelings filled my boy?s chest again. I did not have the courage to step into the porn room and sought instead emotional relief in the family comedies section.

Reading through an interesting photo blog post on a Chinese manufacturing facility of sex robots with sophisticated AI software, the emotion driven boy in me woke up again and the vegetarian father I became was the motivation to create this photo mashup.

The nascent industry of sex robots is peculiarly fascinating. It combines our eternal desire to create (artificial) life through our tireless innovation with the primitive urge of using our reproduction apparatus. A customizable sex doll with body temperature and contextual conversations is the output of the two opposing poles of Homo Sapiens. It is the combination of the uncontrolled, rudimentary impulsion of copulation with the incredibly sophisticated science of robotics and artificial intelligence.

Unfortunately, the fascinating coupling of these extremes also reinforces the disturbing ignorance on how we treat other living creatures on our planet. While we put some of the smartest brains at work to fake life with a talking plastic sex doll, we torture and kill billions of animals in most abominable ways. While we are incredibly busy trying to create life, we are at the very peak of destroying lifes. We successfully ignore vast scientific proof of animals being able to feel, communicate and suffer in the name of industrial production of cheap meat. Instead of opening the gates of the slaughterhouse, we open the doors of IT labs pretending to create ?feelings? based on algorithmic calculations.

It is the paradox between the cruel and systematic killing of lives and the eternal desire to create life. The clash of pitiless indifference towards animal?s feelings against the sophisticated, AI driven ?feelings? of a sex bot. It is this very gap that feels so wrong in my boy?s heart.

Photos: Aleksandar Plaveski