We love the robots


In the period from December 17, 2014, Felix Lill reports on the Japanese researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro, who not only created a robot copy of himself but also sends it on trips to give lectures in his place. He calls these copies Gemonoids, and he also believes it’s possible that one day we can love robots. If children already develop feelings for Tamagotchis, why shouldn’t people also develop feelings for robots?

This idea is not new, for example Fritz Lang’s Metropolis is based on the fact that a machine human is built in the shape of Maria and the men fall for her. David Levy wrote a thesis about it in 2008, which he processed into a popular science book a year later.

For me, the question arises as to what robots can do better in relationships than humans? Thus, each robot could better respond to a person’s psychological deficits and, so to speak, “behaviorally therapeutize” them.

To that fits a video by Björk: