Imagine standing in front of a robot, gazing into its wide, plastic eyes, and falling in love. Your heart revs up, and you hope this Other—this humanoid machine—turns your way again, tilts its head in interest, likes you back.
It happened one summer to Sherry Turkle, at a lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is a professor studying the impact of technology on society. She met a metallic robot named Cog—made to resemble a human, with moving arms and a head—which was programmed to turn toward whoever was speaking, suggesting that it understood what was being said. To Turkle's surprise, she found that she deeply wanted Cog to interact with her rather than with a colleague who was there that day. She realized this human-looking machine was tapping into a deep human desire to see it as alive—as good a companion as any human. She describes it almost like a schoolgirl crush.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Programmed for Love: The Unsettling Future of Robotics - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education
Author: Jeffrey R. Young
