Book Beat

Similarly, in the absences of males in my past, I’ve considered my silver Dell laptop, my Canon Powershot camera, and even my black video iPod gadgets that have helped me pass the time and fill voids in my social and romantic life. Male friends have done the same, holding their cars, bikes and Playstations in the highest regard. These sleek devices, tailored to our liking, give us the pleasure we seek, with no arguments, eye rolls or sighs of disappointment attached.

Part of a generation of technophiles in an age when relationships are more fickle and untraditional and the social mores regarding marriage and sex are changing, my friends and I have declared relationships with inanimate technological objects. We are dependent on such devices, and when away from them, crave their "companionship.” So, if humans are attracted to other humans because they are, for instance, dependable, entertaining, or provide familiarity and convenience, and this attraction — which leads to interaction and communication — can blossom into love (or lust or obsession), then why can’t humans develop amorous feelings for complex technological objects, namely robots? Also consider, perhaps, Frankenstein and his creator. Or the stories of Philip K. Dick or Michael Crichton. Aren’t there real possibilities in these man-meets-machine tales?

I must accompany these sweeping statements — and this book — with a disclaimer: I not only come from an age group saturated with responsive technology, but I personally have a fascination with the fusion of flesh and metal and the emotional relationship between human and machine at a non-scientific and purely imaginative level, so the title alone of David Levy’s new book, "Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships,” is intriguing.

Levy, the London author of books on chess and computers, is president of the International Computer Games Association, and in 2006, he became the first person to present work on intimate relationships with robotic partners at an international conference. He synthesizes a discussion of cutting-edge robotics with the cultural and scientific history, art, literature, popular culture and psychology of artificial intelligence. In the beginning, Levy explains how robots furthered the domesticity of civilization since the Renaissance, and then examines how humans become attached to and develop affection for things like pets and household appliances.

The farfetchedness of Levy’s discussion is palpable when he explores how physical intimacy is the next logical step in this developing connection between humans and robots. He cites the growth of the service robot industry, tracks the development of children’s toys, virtual pets, and life-sized dolls and examines the global sex toy industry — lucrative in the United States, Japan, and everywhere in between — to fuel his thesis.

Levy claims that people will be exchanging vows with robots by mid-century. Shocking? Indeed. But the swift advancements in AI, materials science and other technologies will lead to human-robot marriages, Levy asserts, particularly when these sophisticated machines don human-like physical appearances and the majority of our future society has accepted new social and cultural thinking.

Many people my age acknowledge — or in the case of the techno-tweens under us, sense but aren’t aware — an existing connection to prized and useful machines of all sizes or sense a deeper tie to mechanical devices than generations before us. Our coming-of-age has occurred during a time when the rapid development of technology has intersected with an adolescence and young adulthood steeped in science fiction in art and literature that seems plausible.

Despite Levy’s fantastic proposals — that it’s perfectly logical to assume that intelligent robots will have feelings of love and longing and be able to satisfy a human spouse’s romantic and carnal desires — "Love and Sex with Robots” is at once entertaining and thought-provoking if approached with open-mindedness, curiosity and imagination.

Even if some of his assumptions hold little weight, his unconventional ideas mingling human-robot relations and increasingly sophisticated "sexual technology” — and his appealing argument that a robot companion would never die, fall out of love or cheat — are reason enough to thumb through these pages.

Cheri Lucas can be reached at cheri@smdailyjournal.com.