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Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships Hardcover – November 6, 2007

by David Levy (Author)

37 customer reviews

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Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.From a leading expert in artificial intelligence comes an eye-opening, superbly argued book that explores a new level of human intimacy and relationships—with robots.

From Pygmalion falling for his chiseled Galatea to Dr. Frankenstein marveling at his "modern Prometheus" to the man-meets-machine fiction of Philip K. Dick and Michael Crichton, humans have been enthralled by the possibilities of emotional relationships with their technological creations. Synthesizing cutting-edge research in robotics with the cultural history and psychology of artificial intelligence, Love and Sex with Robots explores this fascination and its far-reaching implications.

Using examples drawn from around the world, David Levy shows how automata have evolved from the mechanical marvels of centuries past to the electronic androids of the modern age, and how human interactions with technology have changed over the years. Along the way, Levy explores many aspects of human relationships—the reasons we fall in love, why we form emotional attachments to animals and to virtual pets such as the Tamagotchi, and why these same attachments could extend to love for robots. He also examines the needs we seek to fulfill through sexual relationships, tracking the development of life-sized dolls, machines, and other sexual devices, and demonstrating how society's ideas about what constitutes normal sex have changed—and will continue to change—as sexual technology becomes increasingly sophisticated.

Shocking but utterly convincing, Love and Sex with Robots provides insights that are surprisingly relevant to our everyday interactions with technology. This is science brought to life, and Levy makes a compelling and titillating case that the entities we once deemed cold and mechanical will soon become the objects of real companionship and human desire. Anyone reading the book with an open mind will find a wealth of fascinating material on this important new direction of intimate relationships, a direction that, before long, will be regarded as perfectly normal.

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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.

About the Author

David Levy is an internationally recognized expert on artificial intelligence and the president of the International Computer Games Association. He is also the author of the industry primer Robots Unlimited. He lives in London.

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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: 6 x 1.2 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 37 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,597,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #709 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Human-Computer Interaction
- #819 in Books > Computers & Technology > Computer Science > Robotics
- #1226 in Books > Engineering & Transportation > Engineering > Industrial, Manufacturing & Operational Systems > Robotics & Automation

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Martin R. Goss

Opening Pandora's box: mechanized romance

July 15, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Levy is correct in asserting the technology for mechanized romance was not long in coming when he wrote this book; in 2015, and having been personally involved with at least 3 of the technologies which go into making these sort of robots, I can tell you it's already here---witness the creations of not only Professor Hiroshi Ishuguro (mentioned in the book), but also Le Trung's Project Aiko and the dancing creation of artist Jordan Wolfson. All of these are female robots designed by men.

At this point in time, I believe the major hurdle to the mechanization of romance is the unwillingness of manufacturers to be accused of playing God or creating Frankenstein monsters.

Mechanization of things like warfare, agriculture, transportation, etc are fine, but there's something visceral about the mechanization of romance that feels like a punch in the gut to most of us (unless we've been too lonely too long).

What the author does NOT discuss is the social impact of mechanized romance. Disruptive? Yes. Misogynistic? You bet! It's clear enough to me that Levy doesn't discuss such topics in his book because he didn't want to come off sounding sexist, getting sued, or both.

Not discussed is how mechanized romance would be almost all positive for lonely single men, whether for genuine love (for example, asexual hetero men who want to remain in the closet) or just mindless sex (yes, I'm talking to all of you pleasure junkies out there), the 10% or so of men who want to become fathers being the only men who'd really lose out. Imagine that---men tired of years or decades of loneliness and an unbroken string of rejections could simply buy a synthetic soulmate with all the traits they desire, a fembot who'd keep them happy for life. But fembots would be highly disruptive because their widespread availability would cut the legs out from under feminism, prostitution, and the divorce mill, and the advantages single hetero women could gain through owning malebots is less clear. It's difficult enough for interested single hetero women to get men interested in them nowadays without robots making it even more difficult.

Whether you love or hate the idea of mechanized romance, this is a very thought-provoking book, one that forces us to ask ourselves what we've done wrong to make the eventuality of mechanized romance necessary in the first place.

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August 18, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

It's been a few months since I finished this book, so I'll just write a very general review.

The book is divided into two halves, the first dealing with love with robots and the second dealing with sex with robots.

He builds his case for robot love very slowly (too slowly IMO), working from pets and cars to robots. It's a fairly sound argument for loving robots, but requires some suspension of disbelief for the reverse. His basic premise is that if something behaves as if it loves you, we should accept that it does. Maybe. But some people won't be able to fool themselves so easily. On the other hand, it's not hard to imagine loving a robot. There is already an entire subculture of people who are in love with high-end sex dolls, and lots of people have a borderline romantic relationship with their pet or car. If that's still a little weird, imagine falling in love with a super advanced cyborg, such as Cameron from The Sarah Connor Chronicles. That's a little easier to swallow. He doesn't discuss cybernetic technologies, but the assumption is that the androids we will see in the coming century will be every bit as lifelike. So I can see people loving a robot, but I don't know how many will honestly believe it loves them back.

The second section gets into sex technologies, but ultimately doesn't make any important points. We already know people will have sex with anything, so there's no need to make that argument. It serves as a good sex history lesson though.

At the end of the day, I have no doubt that this technology will arrive, and I have no doubt that many will embrace it (and of course many will freak out and try to get it outlawed). In the mean time though, this book is little more than speculation and a long argument for loving robots. But it's still interesting and I'm glad I read it.

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R. Pylman

Not salacious; thoughtful.

April 28, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is much deeper than an initial glance at the blurb might indicate. The first couple of chapters, for instance, are an in-depth look at why humans fall in love with each other, and why humans fall in love with their pets. While, yes, it is about Humanity's inevitable future of bangin' 'bots, it does a really good job of examining why that's our future.

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