When You Start Having Feelings For Robots

Boston Dynamics has dancing robots. Endearing or creepy?

Robots are getting more and more lifelike by the day.  

Which led me to this weird but serious question: When do we cross the line before we are affectionate toward them? Are we already there?  

This thought came to me within the past few weeks after Boston Dynamics put out a video of dancing robots. Said robots were well, almost endearing. 

Though the idea of having an emotional attachment to robots isn't new, I think it's going to become more and more part of our lives.  What if you start loving a robot like you'd love your dog or cat, or even your spouse?

Where does that put human beings? Or other living, loving creatures like real dogs?

 A couple years ago, one of my young nephews got a robot dog for Christmas. The robot dog was programmed to figure out how to follow my nephew's leads and preferences, and it did so beautifully.  The robot dog was cute, had a few mannerisms that real dogs have, and I found myself feeling a little affectionate toward that robot dog. As if it had a personality that I liked.

Now, don't worry, my nephew and I both have real dogs, and both of us prefer the furry, slobbering versions much more than the sterile plastic and electronic ones. 

But will the scales tip one day so that we prefer the robot, the fake, over the real and organic?

 As mentioned, Boston Dynamics occasionally releases videos of its athletic robots.  This time, the company showcased the agility, cleverness and yes, humor of their robots.  

This one has them dancing to that wonderful 1962 smash by the Contours, "Do You Love Me."

The robots in this video probably wouldn't win the competition on "World of Dance," but they probably dance better than I do. 

Dance is among the more emotionally connected activities out there. So you can see where we might start making connections to robots. Singing carries even more emotional weight.  You know how voices can be mimicked by electronics. You also probably know how the right song can punch you right in the gut.

Will we lose human singers with all their emotional complexity to robots?  Will it come to that?

It's funny how you get used to things.

Way back in the Stone Age, when disco reigned supreme, Donna Summer came out with the hit "I Feel Love."

When the song first hit the charts in 1977, it just seemed cold, clinical. It was the first major dance hit that was predominately electronic.  I hated it then, but grew to like it.  Quite a lot, I confess.

"I Feel Love" is said to be the catalyst to change dance music, and to extent pop music itself. As Penny Brazier in Medium wrote back in 2019, "Never before had the lush orchestration of disco been stripped away and replaced by something so cool, precise and otherworldly. The song's sentiment was still soulful and human, but the delivery was pure machine. Even Summer's vocal, breathed out in her celestial 'head voice' feels not of this earth."

I still wonder, as I did in 1977, if "I Feel Love" was the start of a robotic world.   Will it be easier, more desirable to attach emotionally to robots?  To wires and computer chips? Will robots be a less frustrating, slightly less complex mess than humans? Or will they be more vexing? Like when your laptop refuses to perform a simple command.

Will the refusal to perform these commands move from being technical glitches to intentional opposition from robots? What if we have bitter fights with robots we had come to love? I clearly don't have any answers, but the world is going to continue to become ever weirder. 

Here's that video. As always, click on the YouTube logo at the bottom of it to make it bigger and easier to view