[tt] Book World: Programmed for Love

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Programmed for Love
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/20/AR2007122002662_pf.html

Programmed for Love
If advances in artificial intelligence continue, your next lover
may have an on/off switch.

Sunday, December 23, 2007; BW03

LOVE AND SEX WITH ROBOTS
The Evolution Of Human-Robot Relationships
By David Levy
Harper. 334 pp. $24.95

Here's a prediction that'll make you squirm: In the future, people
will fall in love with robots. Robots will not be cold, predictable
machines, but actual lovers -- precocious, sexy, and remarkably
humanlike in appearance. Humans will even marry robots in certain
obliging jurisdictions. Now send the kids into the other room while
we mention the obvious, bizarre implication: Someday, people will
have sex with robots.

And not just cold, mechanical sex that barely incites a feeble
meep-meep-meep from your robot lover: No, we're talking about real
elbow-pads-and-helmets sex. Electrifying sex! (And afterward the
robot will take a drag on a cigarette and say, "That really
recharged my batteries.")

We learn all this from robot enthusiast David Levy in his
intriguing but very strange new book, Love and Sex with Robots,
which if nothing else gets points for the straightforward title.
Levy, whose previous book, Robots Unlimited, outlined the coming
era of ubiquitous robotics, has taken his scenario to its logical,
if not entirely persuasive, conclusion:

"Love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans,"
Levy writes, "while the number of sexual acts and lovemaking
positions commonly practiced between humans will be extended, as
robots teach us more than is in all of the world's published sex
manuals combined."

Levy goes on to imagine a world of robot prostitutes, or "sexbots,"
which would offer people a chance to practice their technique
before entering a human relationship. "With a robot prostitute," he
writes, "the control of disease is implicit -- simply remove the
active parts and put them in the disinfecting machine."

At this point you are likely holding up both hands with palms
outward in the internationally recognized gesture meaning "Stop."
This sounds crazy. Clearly robots are not going to become plausible
objects of sexual relationships, much less actual romance and
genuine love, until they have a serious makeover. Human love isn't
so shallow that we'll fall for the first machine with a nice pair
of antennae.

But Levy's thesis isn't as silly as you might initially think. We
are living in a period of revolutionary advances in computer
software and processing speeds. The Japanese already have a
multi-billion-dollar robot industry, including robots used to keep
an eye on -- and even bathe -- the elderly. Sony has invented a
robotic dog named AIBO. Honda has created an android that can climb
stairs. Carnegie-Mellon University invented a robot, Grace, that
managed to register by itself (herself?) for an academic
conference. Meanwhile, researchers are experimenting with flexible
polymers that can be used as artificial skin, an essential leap for
the creation of robots you might actually want to cuddle. Most
important, robots will have to learn to act like humans; one
researcher, Levy reports, has designed robots that can exhibit 77
human behavior patterns.

The key is that these technological advances will someday be
complemented by cultural changes, and cavorting with robots just
won't seem weird anymore. "It would not surprise me if a
significant proportion of readers deride these ideas until my
predictions have been proved correct," Levy writes, and then makes
a cheap analogy to people who once were hostile to the idea that
the Earth was round rather than flat.

Levy's book is entertaining in parts, such as the eye-opening (even
climactic) section on the evolution of vibrators. "A steam-driven
vibrator invented in the United States in 1869 was inconvenient for
doctors to use because they repeatedly had to shovel coal into its
boiler," he writes. (Who among us has not heard the command, "Keep
shoveling"?)

But throughout Love and Sex with Robot s, there's a recurring sense
of the writer trying a little too hard: Every brick must be
carefully laid as he builds the great edifice of his thesis. Thus,
we must labor through long sections on why people fall in love, why
they love their pets, how they become attached to their computers,
and so on, before we can get to the good stuff on sex toys. And
it's not clear that Levy -- described on the book jacket as "an
internationally recognized expert in artificial intelligence" -- is
truly an expert on the subject of human love. He seems more like a
partisan in a technological debate most of us didn't realize was
going on.

No doubt it is a good bet that technology and sexual desire will
continue to have a mutually supporting relationship. But Levy is
not merely saying that sex toys will be more elaborate in the
future. He is envisioning robots as essentially interchangeable
with people. The problem is, a robot programmed to fall in love
with a person is essentially a fancy inflatable doll. Imagine the
awkward moments:

Robot: I love the clever way you comb those few, thin, feeble locks
of hair all the way over the vast bald region of your head.

Human: You're just saying that.

Levy stipulates, near the end of the book, that an important part
of sexuality is "the possibility of failure or denial," and thus
sexbots will need to be able to mimic human "capriciousness." But
at some point you wind up with sexbots out of control, which, come
to think of it, is a great idea for a science fiction movie.

If Levy is right, the era of rambunctious robot love is not far in
the future. But I'd advise everyone to hang on to a flesh-and-blood
backup. *

Joel Achenbach is a Washington Post staff writer and blogs at
washingtonpost.com/achenblog.