Hugs would have been a great example, human contact is the point; not true with massage, not unless you're being creepy. They're there for your muscles, not to turn you on and fill some emotional need.

Many people use massage for stress reduction which is an emotional need. Emotional does not necessarily mean romantic or sexual emotion.

This is my issue with discussions on tech. People tend to oversimply the problem as if a human is just another rational data input. Massage is more than just mechanically manipulation of the body. Autonomous driving is more than just perception.

Oversimplification leads to wildly optimistic ideas and timelines. I’m not saying they’re impossible, just that the problems are much more complicated than we give them credit.