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Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships
Love and Sex with Robots The Evolution of HumanRobot Relationships Author:David Levy Synthesizing breaking news in the field of robotics with the cultural history, technological development, art, literature, and psychology of artificial intelligence, Love and Sex with Robots is popular science at its diverting –– and eye–opening –– best. Starting with the ways in which robots have supplemented human... more » domesticity from the Renaissance to the modern age, David Levy proceeds to document the ways in which humans form affection for animate things, from pets to common household devices that employ responsive technology. He then explains how conditioning oneself to interact with such things engenders both communication and dependence in their owners –– and how such interaction can lead to amorous feelings. In the second part of the book, Levy uses that amorous connection as a springboard to explore how physical intimacy between humans and robots is the next logical step in an age–old correlation between love and sex. Toss in the rapidly expanding sex toy industry –– and its far reach from the US to Japan and everywhere in between –– and you have a global trend, one that is by turns surprising, troubling, and titillating. From Pygmalion falling for his chiseled Galatea to Dr. Frankenstein marveling in both awe and terror at his "modern Prometheus" to the man–meets–machine fiction of Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, and Michael Crichton, readers have been enthralled by the possibilities of interaction between technological creations and themselves. Shocking yet wildly informative, Love and Sex with Robots builds on that fascination to show how entities we once deemed benign and unresponsive may very well turn out to be objects of real, human desire.« less