Gone are the days of sex dolls that barely resemble the human form and have less-than-appealing features. Today's models are fully customisable and will soon come with artificial intelligence. Australian sexologist Dr Nikki Goldstein visited Los Angeles to explore a factory which specialises in the making of these new-age dolls. There she met the creators of'Harmony' and'Henry' - a breed of doll that has the makings of a robot and is AI-enhanced. 'Fundamentally [the doll] is for someone who is looking for a different form of companionship - that really summarises what most people have in their mind when they start looking at this,' said Matt McMullen on Sex & Life, Dr Goldstein's podcast.

If you've ever wondered what a life-sized mechanical sex toy called Harmony looks like reciting the lyrics to Thriller with all the passion of Alexa ordering the shopping, then The Sex Robots Are Coming (Channel 4) has got it covered. This fascinatingly bleak documentary explored the question of just how close humans and machines are going to get, and looks at the burgeoning sex robot industry, which one day hopes to create life-like rubber women who will talk and show pre-programmed emotions, but only if they are more obedient, passive and pliable than the irritatingly free-willed real thing. This was by turns hilarious and upsetting, as perplexing as it was educational. The Californian RealDoll company is on a quest to make a realistic sex robot. It already sells RealDolls for people to have their wicked way with, and though it has an eye-watering male model, 80% of customers want a female doll.