What do we know about robots?
I am a social psychology graduate student studying intimate human-robot interaction. As part of my thesis, I asked 350 people whether they would want a robot as a friend or lover, and compared their responses to a number of individual traits. Our big finding was that men (perhaps unsurprisingly) were more interested in robots for sex, but that if someone view other groups as below them, they were actually less interested in sex robots.
My belief here is that robots may be viewed as a proxy for humans, and if you already view some humans as lesser, a robot is not necessary. Curious about others' thoughts on this, since everyone here might be similarly minded to the research I'm conducting.
0
0
0.000
I don't think I'd have much interest in intimate relations with a robot. That said, they'd probably be a lot less complicated. lol
!HYPNO
Hey @cynergi, here is your HYPNO ;)
As a social psychology graduate student that is new here you might be interested in the HypnoChain tribe on this platform administered by @dannychain. It's new and one of the more niche tribes. The downside is right now it mostly has short posts and could use more knowledgeable content creators posting there.
I've been interested in this since I heard David Levy being interviewed on a radio program about his book Love and Sex With Robots.
I can imagine a situation in which I could fall in love with a robot and want to marry her. I also understand that wouldn't make my life easy. I am one of those rare INTJs who believes in a higher power. I would probably be excommunicated from my church and even if it didn't officially rise to that level there would most likely be a lot of pressure on me to leave. Partly joking I might have to convert to my robot wife's religion but really that would be the consequence.
I've been lucky to work closely with colleagues of Levy, and work with a group that sponsors the LSR conference. Maybe the closer we get to making robots human (does this unit have a soul?), the more accepting people from all creeds may be!
We can hope. Maybe there will be more acceptance in cultures that already have an established belief that even inanimate objects can have a spirit; so a robot having a "soul" isn't a huge mental leap. There are people who believe non-ionizing 5G radio waves caused a global pandemic and their logical leap is to burn down cellphone towers. Can you blame me for being at least a little pessimistic?😅
Other futurists talk about human cybernetic enhancements to the brain. You can do a Ship of Theseus and ask people at what point when a person's brain cells being replaced with robotic equivalent cells does the person stop being human. Does their answer correspond with a robot becoming more human as emulating algorithms for human thought and emotion are added? I don't know. Maybe you do.,😁