Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships

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Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships

3.25 of 5 stars 3.25 · rating details · 151 ratings · 38 reviews

Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.From a leading expert in artificial intelligence comes an eye-opening, superbly argued book that explores a new level of human intimacy and relationships--with robots.From Pygmalion falling for his chiseled Galatea to Dr. Frankenstein marveling at his "modern Prometheus" to the man-meets-...more Love, marriage, and sex with robots? Not in a million years? Maybe a whole lot sooner.From a leading expert in artificial intelligence comes an eye-opening, superbly argued book that explores a new level of human intimacy and relationships--with robots.From Pygmalion falling for his chiseled Galatea to Dr. Frankenstein marveling at his "modern Prometheus" to the man-meets-machine fiction of Philip K. Dick and Michael Crichton, humans have been enthralled by the possibilities of emotional relationships with their technological creations. Synthesizing cutting-edge research in robotics with the cultural history and psychology of artificial intelligence, Love and Sex with Robots explores this fascination and its far-reaching implications.

Using examples drawn from around the world, David Levy shows how automata have evolved from the mechanical marvels of centuries past to the electronic androids of the modern age, and how human interactions with technology have changed over the years. Along the way, Levy explores many aspects of human relationships--the reasons we fall in love, why we form emotional attachments to animals and to virtual pets such as the Tamagotchi, and why these same attachments could extend to love for robots. He also examines the needs we seek to fulfill through sexual relationships, tracking the development of life-sized dolls, machines, and other sexual devices, and demonstrating how society's ideas about what constitutes normal sex have changed--and will continue to change--as sexual technology becomes increasingly sophisticated.

Shocking but utterly convincing, Love and Sex with Robots provides insights that are surprisingly relevant to our everyday interactions with technology. This is science brought to life, and Levy makes a compelling and titillating case that the entities we once deemed cold and mechanical will soon become the objects of real companionship and human desire. Anyone reading the book with an open mind will find a wealth of fascinating material on this important new direction of intimate relationships, a direction that, before long, will be regarded as perfectly normal.(less)

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published November 6th 2007 by Harper (first published November 1st 2007)

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May 04, 2013 Matthew Antosh rated it 2 of 5 stars

Sometime in the not so distant future, the movement for android civil rights and robosexual rights will be the most important movement of it's time. Love and Sex with Robots: the Evolution of Human-Robot relationships is not the manifesto for that movement.

Levy is a technologist, not a humanist or ethicist. His vision of sexuality is very mechanic, where attraction can be summed up with a mathematical equations and that the reason people will have sex with robots is because of what they produce...more

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May 31, 2009 Geoffrey Sperl rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book discusses, at length, sex in the western world (with a bit of Japan thrown in as well, but very, very little). Levy's main discussion is focused on justifying why, in his mind, sex, love, and even marriage to robots will be acceptable about mid-century, and he attempts to tie our changing sexual attitudes to his hypothesis.

I can't really say that I disagree with him, but I don't think the book makes the argument as opposed to just forecasting it. He's saying, because our attitudes have...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Christopher rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Should I create a "robot sex" shelf for this? Probably.

Seriously, the book was pretty dull, but I think I knew it was going to be. The history of sex toys part was quite interesting, which is really all that gets this book two stars. It could have made a four-star essay.

Be forewarned: reading this book in the library is hilarious. People will look at you like you are insane, so make sure to hold the cover out so people can see what you are reading. If you can get away with yelling things like "...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Alea Teeters rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ai-robotics

Includes a lot of good research and information on the future of robotics, with a bit of personal prediction that is sweepingly general and tries to take into account wide possibilities, but comes off as narrow and particular to one personality. Overall, I enjoyed it for the excellent survey of the more creative and psychology-based side of robotics and AI.

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Nov 11, 2011 Amblingbooks.com marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: available-on-audio, nonfiction, audiobook

"Fascinating. It raises important questions about the future of robots�and what our interactions with them might teach us about ourselves." � New Scientist

Listen to Love and Sex with Robots on your iPhone, desktop, or smartphone.

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Jul 07, 2011 M0rningstar rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

Robots and androids have enthralled me ever since I was a little kid (C-3PO and R2-D2 were the only parts of Star Wars that I gave a toss about.) So imagine my surprise and delight when I happened upon this book.

The author does a good enough job of gathering relevant research findings (although his presentation is not always clear), but the conclusions he draws from them are laughably simplistic. For example, he asserts that robots will be readily accepted, even preferred, candidates for arrang...more Robots and androids have enthralled me ever since I was a little kid (C-3PO and R2-D2 were the only parts of Star Wars that I gave a toss about.) So imagine my surprise and delight when I happened upon this book.

The author does a good enough job of gathering relevant research findings (although his presentation is not always clear), but the conclusions he draws from them are laughably simplistic. For example, he asserts that robots will be readily accepted, even preferred, candidates for arranged marriages because they can be customized (in terms of physical and personality traits) to the liking of the parents and prospective spouse. This completely fails to take into account the reality that, in most arranged marriages, substantial consideration is given to a candidate's family background/connections and socio-economic status, neither of which customizable robots are likely to possess.

The book spends a lot of ink arguing for the acceptance of robots as our companions and, eventually, as our lovers, repeatedly citing supporting research featuring animals and computers. While this is an important point to make, it could have been presented far more succinctly, thus leaving room for more discussion of the potential effects of such acceptance. This far more important and interesting topic, alas, is largely confined to the short concluding chapter.

Most problematic is the book's lack of internal coherence. Longueurs expound on the many characteristics you can customize to your heart's content when ordering your robot from the store--everything from eye colour and muscular build to sociability and mood. After purchase, if you ever decide to, let's say, have multiple partners, you can even dial down the "jealously" setting to ensure smooth sailing. A few pages later, the author is enthusiastically recommending marriage with your robot and comparing the eventual acceptance of such marriages with the evolution of married women's rights and same-sex rights. He doesn't seem to understand that such comparisons are inane because marriage between a man and a woman (or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman) is between two persons. A robot whose very personality and memories one has absolute and constant control over (not to mention property rights) cannot be considered its own person. Conversely, if one were to confer personhood onto robots, then tweaking one's synthetic mate to be less jealous or more affectionate for one's own convenience/pleasure would be profoundly unethical. It's baffling that someone writing a whole book about love + sex with robots would not spot this nut-numbingly obvious contradiction. Needless to say, deeper issues like consent and competence are not even mentioned (except for a single-line footnote), let alone addressed.

The author also operates on a rather antiquated model of gender roles, a particularly unforgivable shortcoming when one is supposedly writing about futuristic love and sex. Perhaps because of this, there's scant discussion of same-sex relationships or alternative sexualities.

It's frustrating to see such a thought-provoking topic treated so thoughtlessly.(less)

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Apr 11, 2010 Ele Munjeli rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had to skip around to hold my interest in this intensely technical book. It examines research surrounding the impending phenomena of robot love through the perspective of attachment to pets and technology, sexual mores, the development of human love relationships, and sexology. On one hand I was like, no. On the other, I was intrigued. Which makes me not an innovator, but an early adapter, I guess. Following the book, I was searching for images for inspiration on a distinct project, and search...more

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Mar 14, 2012 Ari rated it 3 of 5 stars

There are some intriguing ideas in here, but overall, Levy seems to mix scenarios to fit his whims. His arguments that robot technology will improve rapidly in the coming years is compelling. His ideas that social mores will adapt as quickly are weak, though. The biggest holes in his argument seem to center on his conception that individual robots will be completely under their owner's control, which negates his thinking on one falling in love with that robot. He seems to think that if we someho...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Amy marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: geekery, nonfict, science

Couldn't find the book I was looking for at the library, but saw this on a nearby shelf. Hope it's interesting!

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May 19, 2009 Elise rated it 3 of 5 stars

I wrote the below (see quoted text) when I was halfway through the book. I have to say, my opinion of the book improved with the second half. Levy abandoned a lot of his writing foibles that annoyed me so, and his history of the sex toy industry was awesome. Three stars.

"I'm about halfway through this book and so far I agree with most of the mediocre reviews others have given it. The topic is fascinating, the facts in Levy's book are fascinating, his writing style is insufferable. I actually don...more

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Jun 04, 2010 Dea marked it as dropped

I didn't get THAT far into the book, only about 60 pages or so. I dropped it because it was not what i thought it would be, and i thought it was boring. At first the idea of a book about the psychological, emotional, and cultural impacts of love/sex with robots would be interesting, but this book is more of "don't be afraid of the future because we already doing it." In my opinion this book was written to justify an emotional attachment to a non human being, but i already have no problem with wh...more

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Aug 08, 2008 Osho rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008

The structural problem with the delivery of an otherwise fine idea is that Levy's writing is rarely exciting. I appreciate his effort to construct his argument slowly and methodically, yet the result is a fairly boring work, considering the subject matter. Levy spends a lot of time building evidence for the contention that people would have love and sex with androids. Perhaps because I read a lot of science fiction, or perhaps because this conceit does not seem very far-fetched to me, I found mu...more The structural problem with the delivery of an otherwise fine idea is that Levy's writing is rarely exciting. I appreciate his effort to construct his argument slowly and methodically, yet the result is a fairly boring work, considering the subject matter. Levy spends a lot of time building evidence for the contention that people would have love and sex with androids. Perhaps because I read a lot of science fiction, or perhaps because this conceit does not seem very far-fetched to me, I found much of the book to be plodding and over-explained. The amount of material could be halved with no loss of data and an increase in readability.

The main content problem is that Levy spends much time on this initial point and gives short shrift to the implications of love and sex with robots. He barely addresses the issue of jealousy. As a psychologist, I'm well aware that people are jealous not just of partners' friendships, but also of their online flirtations, use of sexually-oriented chat, online and real life use of pornography, and even the objects euphemistically referred to as "marital aids." Levy's very brief discussion of jealousy is unsatisfactory and would have been very interesting, especially since one of his chief contentions is that people will fall in love with these robots. How then is jealousy not a critical part of this discussion?

As to the love aspect of the book, while I agree with the evidence Levy musters about people falling in love with their robot, I do wonder at his almost quaint coupling of love and sex with robots. I have struggled with how to write this section of my review in a satisfactory way. I will merely say that if I were to imagine myself in the near future when robots with sexual functions were available, if I were to avail myself of this opportunity, I would be less distressed by C3PO than by Data. What I mean by this is that I do not think the appeal of a robot would be its human-like qualities or personality, but its machine-ness and its lack of pretense. Others may not agree, and indeed, I have never liked cosmetic interventions (such as coloring one's hair or getting plastic surgery) that seem to me to be physical lies. Levy presents sufficient evidence to the contrary that I recognize that I might be in a minority.

The other issue that troubles me is that though Levy makes many efforts to include homosexuality in his discussion, it is usually as an example of a cultural taboo that has been progressively normalized (at least in the US and EU). He makes mention of the possibility of same-sex (sic) robots, but his robot/human love story is heavy on love, light on sex, and generally heterosexually recuperative--that is, the examples he gives are "heterosexual." It is as if robots must be gendered in order to be sexual objects. Robots constructed for sexual purposes are built as male or female, and sexual orientation is implied to carry over to sex with them. This seems strangely prudish, or at least evinces a surprising lack of imagination.(less)

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Apr 04, 2008 Adam Hyla rated it 2 of 5 stars

By 2029, robots will be moving about as with as much animal grace as you or I. By 2035, they’ll be conversing in ways that seem so natural it will be hard to tell them apart. And around that time, we’ll be getting them into bed — or they’ll be seducing us. The cyborgs are coming, and they’re bringing, writes David Levy, “great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7.”

We’re a nation as fearful of robots as Japan (where Toyota, by 2010, plans to roll out models that serve tea and look after the elderly) is...more By 2029, robots will be moving about as with as much animal grace as you or I. By 2035, they’ll be conversing in ways that seem so natural it will be hard to tell them apart. And around that time, we’ll be getting them into bed — or they’ll be seducing us. The cyborgs are coming, and they’re bringing, writes David Levy, “great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7.”

We’re a nation as fearful of robots as Japan (where Toyota, by 2010, plans to roll out models that serve tea and look after the elderly) is fond. But the rush of new technologies pulls along sexual innovations in their wake. Cybersex has supplanted the telephone as a means of long-distance lovers to get their freak on. With a computer, a modem, and a haptic interface, the discipline of teledildonics produced the first transcontinental orgasm in 2005. And some things stay the same: Couple the long history of love machines (from the to the RealDoll) for boys and girls with our abiding fondness for the sex trade (et tu, Elliot Spitzer?). Throw in a dash of the anthropomorphism attendant to our gadgets that’s been around since a seaman called his boat a she.

The result: a kind of life, ready to please us. The iPod, incredibly plain-looking but infinitely accessorized, its files more than the sum of their gigabytes, will be pushed aside as the highest technological statement of self. “What’s on your MP3 player?” will someday become “Who’s in your ’bot posse?” Or harem.

We have a ways to go in making lifelike skin or plausible conversationalists. For the first one, trust that pornographers around the world are experimenting with ever more pliant silicone. For the second, Levy closes the gulf between human and man-made personality by extending to emotions the so-called Turing thesis: If a machine appears to us to be intelligent, we should assume that it is, in fact, intelligent.

If “a robot ‘cries ‘ for attention, then the robot is expressing its own form of emotion in the same way as a baby does when it cries for its mother,” he writes. “The robot that gives the , by its behavior, of having emotions should be regarded as emotions….”

What for? “If users believe that their robot loves them, and that they in turn love their robot, the robot is more likely to be seen as alive,” writes Levy. “And if a robot is deemed to be alive, it is more likely that its owner will develop increased feelings of love for the robot, thereby creating an emotional snowball” — a snowball on its way to an uncertain end. The emotional attachment of one man for his fembot will be a tribute to the machine’s makers, a kind of worship of the computer scientists and materials engineers and the corporation to whom they belong.

At the ultimate test of lovers robots will fail always: They will not be unpredictable in any way other than is dictated by their programming and disclosed upon their sale. Love entails vulnerability, risk, launching yourself into someone else’s sea. A cyborg lover is just another drydock.

Levy believes that robots’ programmed supportiveness and judgment-free companionship will help solve the worldwide shortage of wellbeing. That’s a wager I can admire from a distance. There’s another guess to make: that we’ll be tempted to prefer robots’ limpid and discrete display of emotions to our fellow beings’.

Technological innovation once heralded the end of work. Sexbots forecast the end of love.
(less)

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Apr 04, 2008 Carrie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I really wanted to love this book. I tried to overlook its shortcomings and congratulate it for its successes. But ultimately, it just didn't do it for me. I got tired of the author's insistence, every page or so, that I will probably be having awesome robot sex with Terminator-quality androids by the time I'm 70 (that's when he predicts that they'll be widely available and affordable).

It's not the idea of robot sex that bugged me; I think he's probably right that in a few decades the technolog...more

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May 29, 2009 mark rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: nonfiction, relationships

Defiance and Maggie are my two girlfriends. Defiance is a bronze statue and Maggie is a rag doll. They both have personalities and attitudes. They "live" with me, and, for the most part, I enjoy their company. You might think me crazy but I say I’m ahead of the times, an "early adapter." In his book "Love + Sex with Robots," David Levy posits that by mid-century: love and sex and marriage with humanoid robots will be popular. He sites a lot of personal and social benefits from this "advancement....more

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Feb 12, 2008 Priya rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Asimov fans, anti-social people, my family

Saw the author in a Colbert Report interview (he was rather amusing but appeared to take himself a bit too seriously) and found this book at my local library. It's a quick read and I finished it over a weekend, in between bouts of being sick.

The book is entertaining though I feel automatically marginalised since a) the author seems to be focused upon men having female robots for company and b) he spends too much time justifying why robots are appropriate for loving and capable of providing love...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars

David Levy's book is a discussion of how and why we may be intimate with robots in the near future. The very possibility is worth reading about, and indeed Levy gives us much to read and think about, referencing much research done into human behaviour and relationships in general, and more specific research into our relationships with pets and computer programs, and our love of tamagotchis and robo-sapiens. His arguments in general though are a little weak, and most can be summarized as 'researc...more

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Mar 30, 2012 Darnell rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

David Levy really wants to have sex with a robot and he has no reservations about telling everyone. He's not so concerned about what it would mean for a program to have a personality, or research in artificial intelligence. I assume an editor threw "love" into the title so that it'd sound more respectable.

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Feb 22, 2010 John rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book seemed to be written by a very smart, precocious, 11-year old boy with Asperger's. So imagine my surprise when I saw the author's photo in the back jacket flap.

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May 13, 2008 marcali rated it 5 of 5 stars

Fascinating-- the sexual practices history is worth the read in of itself! Mind-boggling to consider that if a robot is programmed to respond emotionally, is that then for all intensive purposes, emotion? He makes a solid logical argument demonstrating likely directions societies will take as technology becomes more integrated and responsive.
Despite all this, however, one feels a slight embarrassment entertaining all of these possibilities when that same effort toward technology does not manage...more

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Jul 31, 2011 Cynmo rated it 5 of 5 stars

His analysis section uses materials and sources that overlap from those I used in my dissertation on Artificial Vaginas and Sex Dolls.

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Oct 06, 2012 Judith rated it 2 of 5 stars

The book was disappointing to me. It did not deliver what I expected from the title. I learned a great deal about relationships and I suppose some justification for having a relationship with an inanimate object. The justification for a trend for sexual relationships between humans and computers was not well written but more inferred. I lost my patience once I got to the section about inflatable dolls.

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Feb 09, 2012 Hom Sack rated it 5 of 5 stars

Reads better the second time around four years later. Still, I think most people would find his predictions creepy. But then so were inter-racial marriage and gay-marriage in their time.

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Jan 24, 2013 Michael Simborg rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good introduction and historical overview for the uninitiated.

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Sep 22, 2008 Wesley rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like being insulted and offended, or people who are ignorant themselves

This book is so offensive that I couldn't finish it. I tried to get past Levy's obscenely prejudice views (which he makes very clear at every opportunity) but I couldn't. This man is disgustingly ignorant.

He did have some common sense, uninteresting, things to say about technology, which he padded quite a bit and took way more words than needed to say, but these things were far and few between his vulgar displays of hatred and contempt that have nothing to do with the subject of the book. Do not...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Sydney added it · review of another edition

Read this one for research--pretty wild stuff. Gave me lots to talk about at parties!!! ;)

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Oct 10, 2009 Wendi marked it as did-not-finish

I found the author's thesis that because humans love pets, they will love (and then have sex with) robots, implausible.

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Oct 12, 2007 Rakesh rated it 5 of 5 stars

this is the first book that i signed up in my new job at harpercollins, and i think it is one of the most entertaining and informative nonfiction books that i have read in quite some time. i think that there is a really palpable intersection between the cybergeek and the sexologist, and david levy describes the fascinating interplay of these psyches in here. i really believe that it's one of the wisest and most prophetic books around right now.

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May 04, 2013 Theresa rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: did-not-finish

This book would have been much better off as an essay- if that.

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Oct 10, 2009 Morgan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book was amazing. I found it utterly fascinating. For anyone interested in the human/computer relationships and their evolution as the field of robotics advances this is a must read. It is interesting from anthropological, sociological, psychological, economic, moral and philosophical points of view. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interesting in the evolution of the human/machine relationship.

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