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The Science of Human-Robot Love

An anonymous reader writes "By harnessing a new sphere of science called 'lovotics', Hooman Samani, an artificial intelligence researcher at the Social Robotics Lab at the National University of Singapore, believes it is possible to engineer love between humans and robots. Samani's robots have artificial psychological and biological systems that mimic the human brain and endocrine systems, and use movements, sounds, and lights to show their mood and level of affection for a human."

2 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How long until we prefer a machine? by RsG · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Eh, depends on the person. Maybe if we're really lucky, we'll filter the most selfish and superficial humans from the gene pool within a few short generations. Let the androids and gynoids fuck em so the rest of us can get on with life.

    Of course, that does bring up the interesting question of what happens when they build a droid that's fully human, mentally speaking. At that point "sexbot" becomes a degradation, since instead of making an animatronic realdoll or dildo with legs you're instead making what is essentially an unwilling slave, with all the violation of basic rights that entails. In which case, if someone does build a "robot girlfriend" with the capacity to leave and be her own person (i.e. not a slave), does there still exist a difference between robot and human relationships?

    --
    Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
  2. Re:Love? by NortySpock · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Um, that's not called love. You can call it eccentric, kinky, quirky ... even obsessive and crazy. But love? No, that's not love.

    Who are you to determine who or what someone else falls in love with? Sure, you may not be interested, but maybe you should leave determining what feelings are to the person who is experiencing them.

    What will you claim next? That homosexuals are not really in love? That their love is eccentric, kinky, quirky ... even obsessive and crazy? No? Then, by the same token, I say leave the robosexuals alone.