A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab previously funded in part by Jeffrey Epstein hosted a panel where attendees openly discussed the idea of using “child-size sex robots” to treat pedophiles.
The MIT Media Lab’s July 2016 conference on research questions without “social and moral constraints” included a panel discussion arguing that pedophilia should not be seen as a “moral failing” but rather a medical condition and that the development of “child-size sex robots” is an inevitability, a transcript and video of the event shows.
The Media Lab’s ties to the disgraced financier span a 17-year period in which the lab readily accepted Epstein’s cash donations and facilitated introductions with its scientists on-campus and off, according to a 2020 fact-finding report commissioned by the university. The lab’s director contemplated inviting Epstein to one of its conferences in July 2016, the report states, the same month of the conference where the child-size sex robots were proposed, the only conference the lab hosted that month, according to its website.
“Once child-size sex robots hit the market, which they will, is the use of these robots going to be a healthy outlet for people to express these sexual urges and thus protect children and reduce child abuse? Or is the use of these robots going to encourage, normalize, propagate that behavior?” said one panelist. “We can’t research it [because of reporting restrictions]. But I do wonder whether they’re doing more harm than good in these cases. Because as much as people want these sexual urges — the urges, not the act — to be a moral failing, they are a psychological issue.”
“The issue of normalization, as you brought up. How does that change of society as a whole, and the acceptance of certain kinds of behavior?” another panelist said, while warning about the possibility of the robots being diverted to a black market for entertainment. “The notion of studying sexual deviance and actual normal humans interacting with these things can provide the basis for a deeper understanding of how that operates.”
The previously unreported panel comes to light as the public’s gaze once again fixates on Epstein’s ties to academia, Wall Street and government amid the Trump administration’s move to close the book on investigating the matter any further. The Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation announced in a July 7 memo that they had uncovered no “client list” and would not make further disclosures, spurring incredulity among the president’s supporters and driving a fracture between U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino. The memo also stated “Epstein harmed over 1,000 victims.”
Hellbound and Down 