I’ve been on this kick of reading books that illuminate how our immediate future will soon resemble a Philip K. Dick novel.
The latest was Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle. Turkle is a professor at MIT. She is able to understand science stuff even though she possesses a vagina, and didn’t get the memo from possible future fed head Lawrence Summers that chicks should stick to their capabilities like cooking and transvaginal wand-mounting.
Turkle was teaching when Joseph Weizenbaum unveiled the ELIZA program in the 1970s. ELIZA was a computer program where users could engage in a conversation with a machine. Like a person could type “My boyfriend is making me sad” and get the response “Tell me more about your boyfriend.” Weizenbaum found his students wanted to be alone with ELIZA and was alarmed by their attachment to it.
Today, the talk is of sociable robots caring for our elderly in nursing homes. Nursing homes are already using Paro, the robotic seal, to provide comfort to patients with dementia.
Robots are also being considered as caretakers for children to free up adults so they have more time to spend on tweeting about their on-again, off-again relationship with Siri and Instagramming their dic picks.
Turkle is not a fan of this nor of the inevitable future of human-robot relationships. She believes people–children especially–need to be around other humans to keep that pesky thing called empathy alive. Empathy is like soooooo 1994.
Research–the thing that’s the opposite of gut reaction–is showing that Americans are increasingly insecure, isolated and lonely.
Turkle believes the future of robots as love partners will compound this. It is the gateway to new narcissistic experiences. The robot is cast in the role of what you need. You can power it off when it begins to nag you about the dishes. How can it be a relationship if one of the parties is not really alive and capable of human emotions? I’ll tell ya how.
I can see some advantages to a robot partner, for example:
- farting freely
- minimal engagement with the in-laws since they don’t exist
- dance marathon advantage
But I may be siding with Turkle on this one. It seems very much like dating oneself and who would want to do that?
As of now, we seem more fixated on our distraction devices than we are on our relationships to people who physically occupy the same room. Go to any airport and you’ll see what I mean. At some point, I can see people becoming frustrated with their robot partners, which will inevitably lead to this:
And no one wants that.
Speaker7 
Speaker7,
Well it’s unrelated, but I just had to, just had to…
Le Clown
Le Clown,
Oh. My. God.
Speaker7
I so wish I hadn’t had a mouthful of coffee when I clicked on that. Exuse me while I clean up the mess.
Le Clown,
I choked on my cough drop. I like your glitter tat.
UnCLe
HOLY SHIT. I just spit out my drink.
It’s the sexy pout that does it for me.
Sorry to disappoint. You would have in-laws, and you’d be forced to spend every Thanksgiving with a Commodore 64 and a Sega Genesis. No one wants that.
Ooh, you’re right. And they’re so traditional, they probably expect me to convert.
It’s 8-bit for the rest of your life.
I would settle for my spouse simply having an “off” button buried deeply in his flesh. It would be so much cheaper than sending him on a solo trip. You know, “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away?”
My version of an off button is the TV and a glass of wine.
I work for a robot masquerading as a human being.
I would totally have a robot love affair! Do I have to talk and cuddle post-coital or can I just go to sleep. Can the robot bring me a sandwich?
You have just brought up two good points that I will add to the farting freely list.
“Empathy is like soooooo 1994.”
I have a huge pile of grunge CDs that are asking you to push that date back a few years…
Howz about 1975? I think that’s when those smiley buttons were popular and they scream empathy.
I started writing a story about this, Speaky! A Japanese-made automatron is adopted by an American family, to be their maid and nanny and companion and whatnot. On learning that she is ‘fully sexually functional’, the family’s two boys lose their virginities to her, as practice, and the family’s father engages in adultery with her, but the automatron grows ever-more sentient and self-aware, eventually falling in ‘love’ with one of them, leading the downfall of all involved. Now tell me that wouldn’t be a great book/film 😉
That sounds awesome! I would read the shit out of that.
The farting freely thing sold me.
Seriously. There would be no judgement. No crinkling of the face. It seems like paradise.
You had me at robot sex.
Off to buy electro-resistant condoms…
I don’t mean to come across as a buzz-kill but… umm… meet B.O.B. While Thomas Edison was creating the light bulb, his science-widow was creating a vibrator.
I’m thinking the procreation would likely result in batteries. And who doesn’t need those?
This is actually quite scary stuff (almost as scary as that Barbie Doll Le Clown linked to). The most frightening part is that it no longer seems far fetched. It actually seems like it will become reality.
Give it 5 years. I’m also worried someone will see that Le Clown barbie doll and turn it into a robot that will eventually destroy us all.
I share your concern about robots. But if loving robots (and animals in costumes riding them) is wrong, I don’t want to be right. http://viralvideochart.unrulymedia.com/youtube/Cat_In_A_Shark_Costume_Chases_A_Duck_While_Riding_A_Roomba?id=Of2HU3LGdbo
I’m with you on this one. I could watch that shark cat all day long.
That video completely changed my worldview. Roombas and shark costumes for all!
I’m torn. On the one hand, I like the idea of a robot partner because I wouldn’t have to talk to them or make them sandwiches or anything. On the other hand, I’d always be worried that he would leave me for some hot young processing chippie.
That is always a possibility, but then you just remove the “gross middle-aged man behavior” lever and the robot will return to normal.
You think of everything, don’t you.
I was kind of into this idea until Kanye came into my vision field. We cannot allow any technology where he and Kim K can make robot versions of themselves. The world just cannot handle that much krazy. Spontaneous combustion of the entire universe would be inevitable.
That is true. I think it’s in the bible.
Ha, ha, ha S7. Very funny post AND it’s scary to think that one day a “a bucket of bolts” will be in charge of our kids. If we think that THIS generation has problems (laziness being the worse), I can’t imagine how they will turn out when being raised/taught by an emotionless machine?
Just because we CAN do it, doesn’t mean we should.
P.S. The responses to this post were hilarious. 😛
No one ever answers the “Why are we doing this” question. It reminds me of a Mr. Show sketch where scientists make a plan to blow up the moon. They train a chimpanzee for the rocket trip and teach it sign language. Everyone is so excited and plan these elaborate blow-up-the-moon parties. The chimp is the one that asks why.
I’ve been called a robot more times that I care to store in my flash memory. And speaking for possible uses for robots, whenever I read about politics, I keep thinking we should just replace all politicians with non-partisan robots.
That would cut down on the sex scandals. At least, I hope it would.
Being married to a robot would be as much fun as hanging out with Katie Holmes when she was married to Tom Cruise.
On a similar note, a friend’s brother once tried to pleasure himself with a vacuum, and his penis swelled up and he had to go to the ER.
I predict many accidents like this in the future.
Speaker Seven, you always make me laugh.
“fixated more on..distraction devices than..people in the same room.” Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
My kid will look at me with that fake, “I’m paying close attention to you” stare, while her thumbs are flying on the phone in her lap. I know she’s not listening. How rude is it to…oh, wait a sec. My Hoover Upright Model 360 needs me – it’s really depressed. It says life sucks.
Well, I was going to read this post, but then you stopped me at the concept of transvaginal wand-mounting, and I’m now in hospital with a terrible infection. Thanks.
So funny! And true. And sad. All of those.
Okay seal pup robots are scary, and robots cannot care for humans. Que en el f**king mundo? But I’m riveted. Fabulous post!
Speaker 7 – You are hilarious!!! Loved your post, especially the part about robot babysitters (there has to be a bunch of horror movie premises in that alone). Thought you might find it interesting that at least conceptually, humans are now able to “feel” touch through direct-to-brain electrical signals. This means if you’re say, playing a video game, you could “feel” one of the avatars touch you. More on this here: http://sexyscience1.wordpress.com/2013/10/15/artificial-touch-coming-to-a-video-game-near-you/
Before I even read your post, I was thinking “yup, virtual handjobs.”
Reblogged this on Sexy Science and commented:
Very interesting post on how technology – especially robots – are increasingly involved in our lives. Robot babysitters, anyone? This blog post hilariously explored the potential impact of humans increasingly turning to robots for emotional connection instead of other humans.