Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships (Hardcover)

by David Levy (Author)
Key Phrases: love and sex with robots, sex surrogacy, love with robots, United States, Sherry Turkle, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
In this wide-ranging examination of the emotional and physical relations between humans and the inanimate objects of their desire, AI guru Levy (Robots Unlimited) first addresses the question of love with robots, and moves on to consider the mechanics of actually having sex with them. In order to put the reader at ease with the possibility of human-robot love, Levy compares the phenomenon to the ways in which humans fall in love with each other, their pets, and even their motorcycles. From there, Levy argues, it is a short emotional step to the affection people can be expected to display towards robots. Some readers may be turned off by Levy's fairly graphic descriptions of the mechanics of having sex with robots, and may wonder why Levy chose not to include recent research on the human genome that could one day lead to replacing human "parts," potentially making us more robot-like ourselves. Though Levy's topic is undeniably on the fringe, it will appeal to readers keen on pondering futuristic scenarios.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post

Reviewed by Joel Achenbach

Here’s a prediction that’ll make you squirm: In the future, people will fall in love with robots. Robots will not be cold, predictable machines, but actual lovers — precocious, sexy, and remarkably humanlike in appearance. Humans will even marry robots in certain obliging jurisdictions. Now send the kids into the other room while we mention the obvious, bizarre implication: Someday, people will have sex with robots.

And not just cold, mechanical sex that barely incites a feeble meep-meep-meep from your robot lover: No, we’re talking about real elbow-pads-and-helmets sex. Electrifying sex! (And afterward the robot will take a drag on a cigarette and say, "That really recharged my batteries.")

We learn all this from robot enthusiast David Levy in his intriguing but very strange new book, Love and Sex with Robots, which if nothing else gets points for the straightforward title. Levy, whose previous book, Robots Unlimited, outlined the coming era of ubiquitous robotics, has taken his scenario to its logical, if not entirely persuasive, conclusion:

"Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans," Levy writes, "while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as robots teach us more than is in all of the world's published sex manuals combined."

Levy goes on to imagine a world of robot prostitutes, or "sexbots," which would offer people a chance to practice their technique before entering a human relationship. "With a robot prostitute," he writes, "the control of disease is implicit -- simply remove the active parts and put them in the disinfecting machine."

At this point you are likely holding up both hands with palms outward in the internationally recognized gesture meaning "Stop." This sounds crazy. Clearly robots are not going to become plausible objects of sexual relationships, much less actual romance and genuine love, until they have a serious makeover. Human love isn't so shallow that we'll fall for the first machine with a nice pair of antennae.

But Levy's thesis isn't as silly as you might initially think. We are living in a period of revolutionary advances in computer software and processing speeds. The Japanese already have a multi-billion-dollar robot industry, including robots used to keep an eye on -- and even bathe -- the elderly. Sony has invented a robotic dog named AIBO. Honda has created an android that can climb stairs. Carnegie-Mellon University invented a robot, Grace, that managed to register by itself (herself?) for an academic conference. Meanwhile, researchers are experimenting with flexible polymers that can be used as artificial skin, an essential leap for the creation of robots you might actually want to cuddle. Most important, robots will have to learn to act like humans; one researcher, Levy reports, has designed robots that can exhibit 77 human behavior patterns.

The key is that these technological advances will someday be complemented by cultural changes, and cavorting with robots just won't seem weird anymore. "It would not surprise me if a significant proportion of readers deride these ideas until my predictions have been proved correct," Levy writes, and then makes a cheap analogy to people who once were hostile to the idea that the Earth was round rather than flat.

Levy's book is entertaining in parts, such as the eye-opening (even climactic) section on the evolution of vibrators. "A steam-driven vibrator invented in the United States in 1869 was inconvenient for doctors to use because they repeatedly had to shovel coal into its boiler," he writes. (Who among us has not heard the command, "Keep shoveling"?)

But throughout Love and Sex with Robots, there's a recurring sense of the writer trying a little too hard: Every brick must be carefully laid as he builds the great edifice of his thesis. Thus, we must labor through long sections on why people fall in love, why they love their pets, how they become attached to their computers, and so on, before we can get to the good stuff on sex toys. And it's not clear that Levy -- described on the book jacket as "an internationally recognized expert in artificial intelligence" -- is truly an expert on the subject of human love. He seems more like a partisan in a technological debate most of us didn't realize was going on.

No doubt it is a good bet that technology and sexual desire will continue to have a mutually supporting relationship. But Levy is not merely saying that sex toys will be more elaborate in the future. He is envisioning robots as essentially interchangeable with people. The problem is, a robot programmed to fall in love with a person is essentially a fancy inflatable doll. Imagine the awkward moments:

Robot: I love the clever way you comb those few, thin, feeble locks of hair all the way over the vast bald region of your head.

Human: You're just saying that.

Levy stipulates, near the end of the book, that an important part of sexuality is "the possibility of failure or denial," and thus sexbots will need to be able to mimic human "capriciousness." But at some point you wind up with sexbots out of control, which, come to think of it, is a great idea for a science fiction movie.

If Levy is right, the era of rambunctious robot love is not far in the future. But I'd advise everyone to hang on to a flesh-and-blood backup.

Copyright 2007, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper (November 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061359750
• ISBN-13: 978-0061359750
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.8 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #464,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well Researched book, January 22, 2008

By	J. Aragon "Feminist Educator" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I can only imagine the amount of interesting research David Levy had to do for this book. The book started off good, but got better towards the latter chapters. I found the sections on sex dolls fascinating--these sections were sociological, yet written for the lay audience.

The sections on pets creeped me out some, as did some of the early chapters. The jump of logic was unsettling at times, since I felt that Levy was truly on to something.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and would suggest it to others. The audience for this book is wide--primarily a lay audience, but the sections of the book would be useful in undergraduate courses in humanities and social sciences.

22 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Strange ideas, but could happen, November 30, 2007

By	magellan (Santa Clara, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

Books like Levy's and others such as Raymond Kurzweil's The Age of Spiritual Machines seem to portray a future where humans are obsolete and of little use, yet this is despicted as a good rather than a bad thing, because robots can do whatever it is faster, cheaper, and better, and humans will finally be able to pursue a life of ease and leisure. Futurists like Levy and Kurzweil have even been accused of disliking and having no use for humans, but this is going too far; like the great Arthur C. Clarke's book, Profiles of the Future, written 40 years earlier, Levy and Kurzweil are simply taking current trends and technology and extrapolating plausible futures from that.

As described by Levy an Age of Robots would seem to have certain advantages. Our stewardship of this beleaguered planet has been flawed at best: it has been massively destructive to its environment, perhaps beyond repair; humans claim great religions and spiritual beliefs but then we kill and make war when it's convenient and expedient; we are the most intelligent species but lack wisdom; humans are industrious but we often lack any constructive purpose; and rarely seem to learn from our mistakes, despite our supposed "intelligence." In short, humans haven't done very well on this planet and perhaps it's time for another better race, whether biological or robotic or android, to have a go at running things for a while.

The book is filled with odd but plausible devices such as robot v_ginas and robotic p_nis strokers that will have capabilities far beyond any human's. A robotic partner and lover will always be the perfect mate and will never get bored or inattentive. You will be the entire focus and centerpiece of their existence and you will never have to worry about their being unfaithful or going astray, because these qualities will be programmed into them, rather than having to rely on the uncertainties of human upbringing and morals. Certainly these qualities seem to have advantages over their potentially unreliable human counterparts.

Whether the future envisioned is ultimately for good or bad, it seems inevitable that some day the things imagined by Levy will come to pass. Unfortunately, humans have a tragic history of using technology for evil as much as good--consider what has happened to the "art of war" over the last 100 years--so I don't have much faith that this world will be any better than the present. But who knows; we'll see--and sooner than later--if writers like Levy and Kurzweil are right.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-researched, but a bit optimistic, April 2, 2008

By	Steven Smith (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Overall, this is a fairly thorough treatment on the subject. Mr. Levy provides a history of the use of artificial devices in human sexuality, some of the issues of sexuality in the law, and a quick glimpse at the state-of-the-art in attempts at believable computer interfaces to imitate human interaction. It's an interesting book, and delves into many of the questions that might arise with (as with any new technology) the use of robots for sexual purposes.

Mr. Levy did a lot of research on the history of changes in sexuality and the acceptance thereof, but he definitely views things through a prism of his own biases. For example, he cites the increasing acceptance of "buggery" in England through the 17th and 18th centuries, but dismisses the sharp rise in its prosecution during the 19th century. He writes about the legal issues involved with the use of robots for prostitution, replacements for human sexual partners, and human-robot marriage, and always mentions that there are ethical issues involved, but discusses none of the ethical issues in-depth. He has a very optimistic view of both how quickly and how cheaply robot sex will become; given the history of advancements in computers, this makes sense...given the history of mechanical devices (especially of such complexity and subtlety) it does not. Mr. Levy does not even mention the effect that the Uncanny Valley might have; the fact that at a certain point, anything simulating a human will become noticed not for its similarity, but the sharp contrast that its difference bring to mind.

In summary, this book is a thorough argument for Love and Sex with Robots, but it is not a deep discussion of the more fundamental arguments for why there might not be FemBots in everybody's future.