Abstract
The topic of human-robot intimate relationships is not only an intensely emotional one that is present in the mass media because of its ability to stir excitement. The very same topic also requires our understanding of basic mechanisms of the human mind and of social cognition in particular. A scientifically-minded framing of the debate around whether and how we might engage in intimate relationships with humanoid robots in the near future might in turn improve our understanding of human sexuality. Viewed from this angle, intimate human-robot interaction is then merely one of many examples of studying human-machine interactions for the benefit of users and as a means of improving our knowledge about humans and the human mind. In this chapter we will adopt such a stance and discuss both social-cognitive and sexual aspects of this innovative topic, review available empirical evidence and offer some suggestions for further research.
There once was a mythical land of Oz/where everything that could be was./If only we could see/from what is to what could be.
(Ira Reiss)
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Beauprez S, Bidet-Ildei C, Hiraki K (2019) Does watching Han Solo or C-3PO similarly influence our language processing? Psychol Res. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-019-01169-3
Beier KM, Loewit KK (2013) Sexual medicine in clinical practice. Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4421-3_3
Bermudez JL (2020) Cognitive science – an introduction to the science of the mind, 3. Aufl. University Press Cambridge, Cambridge
Brenot P, Coryn L (2016) The story of sex: from apes to robots. Penguin Random House, UK
Camerer CF, Dreber A, Holzmeister F et al (2018) Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in nature and science between 2010 and 2015. Nat Human Behav 2:637–644. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z
Chevalier P, Kompatsiari K, Ciardo F et al (2019) Examining joint attention with the use of humanoid robots - A new approach to study fundamental mechanisms of social cognition. Psychon Bull Rev. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01689-4
Cross ES, Hortensius R, Wykowska A (2019) From social brains to social robots: applying neurocognitive insights to human – robot interaction. Philos Trans R Soc Biol Sci 374:20180024. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2018.0024
Danaher J, McArthur N (eds) (2017) Robot sex: social and ethical implications. MIT Press, Cambridge
Devlin K (17 September 2015) In defence of sex machines: why trying to ban sex robots is wrong. The Conversation (UK). https://theconversation.com/in-defence-of-sex-machines-why-trying-to-ban-sex-robots-is-wrong-47641. Accessed 17 Feb 2020
Devlin K (2018) Turned on: science, sex and robots. Bloomsbury, London
Fong T, Nourbakhsh I, Dautenhahn K (2003) A survey of socially interactive robots. Robot Auton Syst 42(3–4):143–166
FRR Report (2017) Our sexual future with robots: a foundation for responsible robotics consultation report. https://responsiblerobotics.org/2017/07/05/frr-report-our-sexual-future-with-robots/. Accessed 18 Feb 2020
Harlow HF (1958) The nature of love. Am Psychol 13(12):673–685
Hertwig R, Herzog SM, Schooler LJ, Reimer T (2008) Fluency heuristic: a model of how the mind exploits a by-product of information retrieval. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn 34(5):1191–1206. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013025
Kewenig V (2019) Intentionality but not consciousness: reconsidering robot love. In: Zhou Y, Fischer, MH (eds) AI love you: developments in human-robot intimate relationships. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19734-6_2
Kuksenok K, Santagati S (2019) Readable as intimate: toward a conceptual framework for empirical interrogation of software implementations of intimacy. In: Zhou Y, Fischer, MH (eds) AI love you: developments in human-robot intimate relationships. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 97–110. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19734-6_2
Lancaster-James M, Bentley GR (2018) Beyond the sex doll: post-human companionship and the rise of the ‘allodoll’. Robotics 7:62. https://doi.org/10.3390/robotics7040062
Landers RN, Behrend TS (2015) An inconvenient truth: Arbitrary distinctions between organizational, mechanical turk, and other convenience samples. Ind Organ Psychol 8(2):142–164
Levy D (2007) Love and sex with robots: the evolution of human-robot relationships. Harper Collins Publisher, New York
Levy D (16 January 2013) Roxxxy the „sex robot“ – real or fake? Ashdin Publishing, Lovotics, 1
Li J, Ju W, Reeves B (2017) Touching a mechanical body: tactile contact with intimate parts of a humanoid robot is physically arousing. J Human-Robot Interact 6(3):118–130. https://doi.org/10.5898/JHRI.6.3.Li
Lorenz K (1943) Die angeborenen Formen möglicher Erfahrung. Z Tierpsychol 5:235–409
Lorenz K (1965) Evolution and modification of behavior. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Lugano G, Hudák M, Ivančo M, Loveček T (2019) From the mind to the cloud: personal data in the age of the internet of things. In: Zhou Y, Fischer, MH (eds) AI love you: developments in human-robot intimate relationships. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 111–130. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19734-6_2
Mathur MB, Reichling DB (2016) Navigating a social world with robot partners: a quantitative cartography of the Uncanny Valley. Cognition 146:22–32. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2015.09.008
McArthur N, Twist MLC (2017) The rise of digisexuality: therapeutic challenges and possibilities. Sex Relat Ther 32(3–4):334–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/14681994.2017.1397950
Mende MA, Fischer MH, Kühne K (2019) The use of social robots and the Uncanny Valley phenomenon. In: Zhou Y, Fischer, MH (eds) AI love you: developments in human-robot intimate relationships. Springer International Publishing, Cham, pp 41–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19734-6_2
Nature (2017) Editorial. Let’s talk about sex robots. Interactions between humans and robots may eventually include sex. Nature 547:138, 10 July 2017. https://www.nature.com/news/let-s-talk-about-sex-robots-1.22276. Accessed 2 Feb 2020
Norman DA (2003) Emotional design: why we love (or hate) everyday things. Basic books, New York
Pope Francis (2019) Speech to the pontifical academy for life, 25 January 2019 (non-official translation). https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjx3fm15snoAhURxoUKHXs5AywQFjAAegQIBBAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.academyforlife.va%2Fcontent%2Fdam%2Fpav%2Fdocumenti%2520pdf%2F2019%2FAssemblea2019%2FDiscorsi%2520ufficiali%2520PAPA%2520PAGLIA%2F01_Pope%2520PAV%25202019%2520English%2520NON%2520DEF.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1p_ZPa7jOFr4m9jek9QgBF. Accessed 2 Apr 2020
Rahwan I, Cebrian M, Obradovich N et al (2019) Machine behaviour. Nature 568:477–486. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1138-y
Realbotix (2019) Harmony and Henry sex robots. https://realbotix.com/. Accessed 13 Jan 2020
Richardson K (2015) The ‘asymmetrical’ relationship: parallels between prostitution and the development of sex robots. SIGCAS Comput Soc 45(3):290–293
Richardson K (2019) Sex robots: the end of love. Polity Press, London
Scheutz M, Arnold T (2016) Are we ready for sex robots? Human-robot interaction (HRI). In: Proceedings of the 11th ACM/IEEE international conference on human-robot interaction (HRI), Christchurch, pp 351–358. https://doi.org/10.1109/hri.2016.7451772
Scheutz M, Arnold T (2017) Intimacy, bonding and sex robots: examining empirical results and exploring ethical ramifications. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/10718.003.0021. Accessed 17 Feb 2020
Suvilehto JT, Glerean E, Dunbar RIM, Hari R, Nummenmaa L (2015) Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112(45):13811–13816. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1519231112
Szczuka J, Krämer N (2017) Not only the lonely – how men explicitly and implicitly evaluate the attractiveness of sex robots in comparison to the attractiveness of women, and personal characteristics influencing this evaluation. Multimodal Technol Interact 1(1):3. https://doi.org/10.3390/mti1010003
Szczuka J, Krämer N (2018) Jealousy 4.0? An empirical study on jealousy-related discomfort of women evoked by other women and gynoid robots. Paladyn, J Behav Robot 9:323–336. https://doi.org/10.1515/pjbr-2018-0023
Valverde SH (2012) The modern sex doll-owner: a descriptive analysis. Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, CA, USA. http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/849. Accessed 17 Feb 2020
Wang S, Lilienfeld SO, Rochat P (2015) The Uncanny Valley: existence and explanations. Rev Gen Psychol 19(4):393–407. https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000056
Wykowska A, Chaminade T, Cheng G (2016) Embodied artificial agents for understanding human social cognition. Philos Trans R Soc Lond. Ser B, Biol Sci 371(1693):20150375. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0375
Zajonc RB (1968) Attitudinal effects of mere exposure. J Pers Soc Psychol, Monogr Suppl 9(2–2):1–2
Zhou Y, Fischer MH (eds) (2019) AI love you: developments in human-robot intimate relationships. Springer International Publishing, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19734-6
Zhou Y, Kühne K, Fischer MH (2019) Perceiving artificial voices: an auditory Turing test. Poster presented at the 21st conference of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), 25–28 September 2019, Tenerife
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Der/die Herausgeber bzw. der/die Autor(en), exklusiv lizenziert durch Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, ein Teil von Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Zhou, Y., Fischer, M.H. (2020). Intimate Relationships With Humanoid Robots. In: Bendel, O. (eds) Maschinenliebe. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29864-7_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-29864-7_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-29863-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-29864-7
eBook Packages: Computer Science and Engineering (German Language)