Love & Robots

[Rudolph Quin]

If a robot fell in love with you, could you love it back?

 

[November]

idk. have you seen the movie her?
either i'm a lot smarter than the robot
or the robot has hit that magical AI on-ramp and is a lot smarter than me
either way it's going to be an adult/child relationship, which will probably end up being too weird.

 

[Rudolph Quin]

I have not. That's an interesting interpretation. It really depends on how you program it on what state its mind will be in and how it processes and aggregates information. And it depends on what you consider you being "smarter" than a robot.

What if it knew everything that you knew but considered itself "real" or thought it was a human? Is it not knowing certain things what makes it less smart?

 

[Star Pupil]

In like a Chobits scenario? Maybe. I mean I name all my objects that I spend a lot of money on. I'm affectionate to things.

 

[Rudolph Quin]

In like a Chobits scenario? Maybe. I mean I name all my objects that I spend a lot of money on. I'm affectionate to things.

I do too! Not everything but things that I used a lot. I have only ever flipped through a Chobits manga while in B&N, so, I'm not sure. I left it open to people's personal interpretations of what "robot" and love means in this context and so far, these responses have been interesting.

 

[RedRose]

I suppose not, unless it's so sophisticated (?) that I can't tell it's a robot. But then it would be a little creepy, right?
I'd rather keep it as a friend and get it reprogrammed if it is suffering due to rejection?

 

[Nature Girl]

Nope. Robots totally creep me out but if they make them so convincing I'm fooled they aren't what they seem then I guess it's possible.

 

[SeaChild]

Yeah, I think so! As long as it had a good personality (and appearance, and functionality). The trick would be to make it 'human' enough that I could be comfortable interacting with it, while still having it realize that it's a robot and not try too hard to pretend to be human. I think it would be important for humans and AI to recognize that they're both different kinds of intelligent beings, and that there's nothing wrong with those differences. An android like Data from Next Generation would be perfect.

 

[Phillia]

Maybe if the robot passed the Turing test, but probably not. To be honest, fictional depictions of robot/human romances usually come off as at least kinda creepy and pathetic on the human's part, in my opinion. I'd rather be with another human. Though, reading about them can be fun (and I guess also will be fun to read about if people start going steady with androids while I'm alive.)