Monday, December 3, 2007

The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships: I Think I Love My Robot

Here is a snippet from Robin Marantz Henig's NY Times article on "intelligent" robots.
A must-read, I think.

Marantz Henig notes the following in the beginning of her review.

'A few months ago I wrote a magazine article about scientists who are building robots capable of a rudimentary form of sociability. As part of my research, I spent a few days at the humanoid robotics laboratory at M.I.T. And I admit: I developed a little crush on one of the robots. The object of my affection was Domo, a man-size machine with a buff torso and big blue eyes, a cross between He-Man and the Chrysler Building; when it gripped my hand in its strong rubbery pincers I felt a kind of thrill.'

Read on here. It is bound to entertain and make you think.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

is the first 'her' spelled ''her'' on purpose.....?

Scarlet VanHelsing said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
EvaDress said...

Wow! This article makes it seem as though Ridley Scott's 2019 is closer than we thought! Perhaps there will be boxed up Rachels (minus built-in subservience) on the shelf???

The aspect of this article referring to human tendacny to 'impute emotions onto anything with which we’re in intimate contact' helpfully clarifies for me why I love my work so much!!

B.R. said...

Right. The premise of the book review, I think, was to expose the lack of the 'human' aspect of this new notion or 'invention.'
Coming to terms with the future is as important as being copacetic with the past. I found the reviewer's take a tad affected.
But I also tend to think that all mimesis tends, at least, to be artificial.
And, Ed, as Maggie pointed out to me later that day the 'her' at the beginning of the piece was meant to he a 'here.' Foible corrected.