From Pygmalion falling for his chiselled Galatea to the man-meets-machine fiction of Philip K Dick and Michael Crichton, humans have long 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.
David Levy shows how automata have evolved into the electronic androids of the modern age, and how human interactions with technology have changed over the years. He explores the reasons why we fall in love, form emotional attachments with animals and virtual pets, and how these same attachments will extend to love for robots. He also explores sexual fulfilment through relationships with objects, tracking the development of life-sized dolls, machines, and other sexual devices, and demonstrating how society's ideas about what constitutes normal sex has 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, a compelling and titillating case for the argument that the entities we once deemed cold and mechanical will soon become objects of real companionship and human desire.
