Enchanting Robots: Intimacy, Magic, and Technology

✍ Scribed by Maciej Musiał

• Publisher: Springer International Publishing;Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 168
• Series: Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book argues that robots are enchanting humans (as potential intimate partners), because humans are enchanting robots (by performing magical thinking), and that these processes are a part of a significant re-enchantment of the “modern” world. As a foundation, the author examines arguments for and against intimate relationships with robots, particularly sex robots and care robots. Moreover, the book provides a consideration of human-robot interactions and philosophical reflections about robots through the lens of magic and magical thinking as well as theoretical and practical re-evaluations of their status and presence. Furthermore, the author discusses the abovementioned issues in the context of disenchantment and re-enchantment of the world, characterizing modernity as a coexistence of these two processes. The book closes with a consideration of future scenarios regarding the meaning of life in the age of rampant automation and the possibility that designing robots becomes a sort of new eugenics as a consequence of recognizing robots as persons.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter ....Pages i-xi
Introduction (Maciej Musiał)....Pages 1-9
Robots Enchanting Humans (Maciej Musiał)....Pages 11-62
Humans Enchanting Robots (Maciej Musiał)....Pages 63-113
Disenchanting and Re-enchanting in Modernity (Maciej Musiał)....Pages 115-140
In Lieu of a Conclusion: Where Will We Go from Here? (Maciej Musiał)....Pages 141-154
Back Matter ....Pages 155-159

✦ Subjects

Social Sciences; Science and Technology Studies; Cognitive Psychology; Developmental Psychology; Control, Robotics, Mechatronics