cool movie

Independently, I am entertained ever to find a movie or TV show which explores philosophy, sex, or the future of robotics.  So needless to say, I thought that Love Machine was a blast to watch.  I especially enjoyed the contrast between the ideas the philosophers thought were important and the ideas the sexologists did.  And the array of robots which appeared near the end of the film were very impressive, and I liked the way the film carried us from uninspiring sorts of robots up to the most human like by the end.

I thought that the most interesting question broached in the Q&A, and a topic I have been considering since the first day of the class, is the question of Is it Sex or Masturbation?  This question turns, I think, on the question of whether a robot can love.  I know that love is not a necessary condition for humans to have sex… but then again, I do believe that sex with another person can be masturbation if one has no feelings for the other.  For this reason, I think that the robot’s capacity to feel an emotional response is key in determining whether a person is having sex with the robot, or masturbating.

On that thought, Do I think robots could ever be in love?  I really liked Delanda’s response to this, where he talked about bottom-up causation.  The idea is that if we can build a physical object which acts in love without us telling it to do so, that would be the best evidence that the robot really loves. And I don’t see how this could be bad for society, so long as it is really love that is occurring and not simulated/trick love.