Intimate technologies: The ethics of simulated relationships

This paper considers the complex relationship between ethics and social technologies. It is particularly concerned with what it means to be intimate or share ideas of intimacy with robots and avatars. Looking to the world of theatre and situating our ethical framework within two specific plays we are able to examine new technological narratives that inspire critical reflection on our current and future relationships, sexual taboos and ethical practices. It also poses the question of the role of the arts in preparing society for large technological and social shifts that challenge what we might think of current norms and values, noting that the shifts are not gender free. This allows us to open up to new ideas and modes of being that play with the boundaries of what it means to be intimate, including the entanglement of notions of vulnerability, immersion and control