There are signs that we can establish intimacy with many things, especially those designed for us.

Even as a science fiction character, Theodore Twombly had a bad day. Around the midpoint of Spike Jonze’s 2013 Oscar-winning film "Her", Twombly is-quietly and painfully-portraying an absolutely non-utopian experience. That is to write the final signature on his divorce document. Twombly, played by Joaquin Phoenix, sits in an outdoor café opposite Catherine, played by Rooney Mara, half-jokingly saying that he is “a very Slow signer" and how he "it took three months to write the letter'T'". Catherine smiled. When she took the file from him, he pleaded and failed. She "don't have to do it now," but Catherine insisted gently. No matter what happened to the couple, there is now a gap between them: unless she stays determined, one or both of them may fall into an emptiness. She used a ballpoint pen to outline their future.

Twombly is not the kind of strong, romantic male archetype ("Everything will make you cry," she said half-jokingly, because they awkwardly chose lunches where neither party had an appetite). He is pastel and sensitive, and writes heartfelt letters and anniversary cards for some recent company clients who can outsource their feelings to make a living. But Catherine is not "she" in the movie title either. Although she had made all the preparations for this meeting, it was she, not him, who broke down in the end. Yes, he answered her: He wants to meet a new person. Her name is Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and she is an operating system.

Samantha is also a bunch of other things, but Twombly and Catherine are in a deadlock. Although Samantha does (at least, as the movie portrays) “complicated,” “interesting,” and “her own person,” Catherine—on behalf of the audience—can’t cross the carbon-silicon gap. “You’re with yours. Computer dating? "She asked suspiciously before the pain and anger plunged the conversation into retaliatory chaos.

"I'm glad you found someone," she said, twisting her pain and attacking him. "It's perfect."

But Twombly really likes Samantha. Although the audience may agree more with Catherine's point of view in 2013, the barrier between humans and machines is a problem that today's technology giants are racing to solve.

If you use social media, you will undoubtedly see some cute videos of a toddler trying to have some messy conversations with Siri, or wishing good night from his parents' Alexa. If you pay more attention to the progress these companies are making, you may have watched the 2018 video of Google Assistant making appointments for hairdressing without announcing itself as an artificial intelligence. The idea of ​​robots disguising themselves as humans was thousands of years earlier than Turing, but it is only now that we begin to see real business possibilities-these possibilities are being scrutinized by very smart people from all angles with a lot of cash.

Then, for most of 2020, citizens of developed countries are forced to undergo government-approved long-term quarantine at home. If you are alone, you may have started to receive some special suggestions from any algorithm that runs your favorite app store. Apps like ReplikaAI — a prototype Samantha minus many of her advanced features and Scarlett Johansson — began to appear as "recommendations" in mobile storefronts. News channels in the UK continue to broadcast reports on robots such as Pepper, which are deployed in nursing homes to try to solve the shortage of nursing staff and "talk" with patients. And, naturally, stories about the owners of digital assistants becoming more and more dependent on them began to appear, and real-life assistants can confidently provide various services to a free law firm.

"The blockade highlights the issue of isolation and the deep human need for companionship," said Dr. John Danaher, a lecturer at the National University of Ireland at Galway. Danaher did write (or rather, "edit") this book on the intimate relationship between robots and humans. Danaher, entitled "Robot Sexuality: Social and Ethical Impacts," collected 15 articles from leading thinkers on human-computer sexual relations, from practical (should sex robots be legal?). But even before the lockdown, Dan Nach said that in some surveys conducted before 2020, the public's acceptance of robots and human sexual behavior has risen from 10% in the early part of the last decade to 40%.

Of course, "sex" is not synonymous with "relationship." But it is (at least usually) an expression of some kind of intimacy. For Danaher, whether the partners in this intimate relationship are biological or artificial has little practical significance-what matters is the sum of the parts, not what they are made of.

"[Like artificial intelligence], humans are the product of millions of data inputs, some in their genes (so they originated in our prehistoric era), and some in their life experiences," Danaher said . "I think human beings do not have any core or essential'self' or'soul'. In a sense, we have "downloaded" our behavior and character traits from the "cloud" of human genetics and culture. We are Who also depends largely on the specific situation and background; we are not always stable and reliable. In this regard, I do not see the fundamental difference between humans and robots."

It's not that humans need millions of data points to discover that they have an emotional bond with inanimate objects. Before infant humans could even walk upright, we saw that they formed a seemingly loving attachment not only to non-human pets but also to inanimate objects. None of the parents’ children have left their favorite plush toys during the holidays, and they don’t know the depth of their children’s connection with Flopsy. Although most of us no longer establish contact with toy animals, our ability to establish contact outside of the species has never really disappeared.

Dr. Diana Fleischman is an evolutionary psychologist and lecturer at the University of Portsmouth. She recently asked her Twitter fans to imagine how society would react after extinction-level events (cats).

"I conducted a poll on Twitter a few days ago and I asked:'If all cats in the United States die within a week, will people have more children?'," she said. "Cats are warm, they seek care, and they like to feed their people. But, you know, in terms of the companionship they provide, they are not very easy to train, nor are they very sensitive or complicated. [But] they do seem to provide The minimal decoration needed to form a deep emotional bond."

Fleischman uses robots as partners to provide more than just the idea of ​​sexual satisfaction (such as Danaher, who has written a lot of articles and speeches on sex robots) opens up similar surrogacy ideas-if you deprive a person of interacting with others Opportunity, they will look for alternatives and they can project a deeper relationship than them.

Fleischman-who was pregnant by herself at the time of writing-talked in detail about the anecdotal evidence she collected during her pregnancy. She talked about women undergoing fertility treatment. They announced their intention to buy a puppy as a condemnation of their own body, or drinking a night of wine to reward themselves for their pain and disappointment every month (she does not recommend ).

"[Of] Of these two things, one is really analgesics," she said. "But the other seems to have the qualities of a substitute."

But even if we accept the precedent of deep connections between humans and non-human companions, Fleischman warns that companion robots are unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all model as described in many science fiction novels. Both men and women seek companionship and love-but their importance in a relationship varies by gender. Fleischman provides an example of "catfishing": the process of stringing a stranger online for an improper purpose (usually some form of theft) and a promise of intimacy. She said that women are more likely to be emotionally manipulated-for example, their catfish may reveal information about their cancer, but not the cost of treatment. She went on to say that men are more often attracted to criminals, disguising themselves as women who they think are physically incompatible.

This is also consistent with the findings of another colleague of hers, who checked the reaction of the American reality show, in which men and women “go out” (or “cheated”)-Fleischmann in Germany Texas spoke through Zoom and admitted that she was somewhere between the vernacular) facing the judgment of the audience at home.

"Women are more likely to ask their men,'Do you love her?' Men are more likely to ask,'Did you fuck him?'" Fleischmann said. "Women are more emotionally jealous, while men are more sexually jealous. This is part of the whole puzzle where women are more emotionally and romantically motivated."

This presents an obvious engineering problem for potential manufacturers of companion robots: Forging emotional investment is more challenging than forging a pair of beautiful breasts. The two halves of this market want different things (as evidenced by the almost complete dominance of male sex dolls)-one of them is much more difficult than the other.

Fleischman said: "In relationships that seem to be'provided', women are more motivated." "When you receive attention, it is an honest sign of'supply'. You can't follow multiple people at the same time: if someone talks to you , Paying attention to you, sitting with you, it shows that they have a unique investment in you. Artificial intelligence can have this infinite focus.

"Another thing that women pay attention to in terms of investment is what I call'spiritual real estate'. You know, if my husband does not remember the name of my mother and sister, I will be very sad. I think he should know the names of all my close relatives. Of course he did not, and this may not be a sign that he might leave me-but for me, knowing that a large part of his hippocampus mainly belongs to me, which is reassuring! And a [successful] artificial intelligence is also Can provide these clues."

If you do remember the names of all the blood relationships of your partner, some computer or artificial intelligence may have been involved. Today, we rely heavily on digital calendars to remember our friends’ birthdays. But although these databases are cleverly integrated with the new phone, we know that if a robot triggers this exact emotional response only by calling our mother's sister's name, how warm and fuzzy would we feel? When will we start to feel manipulated by a romantic robot companion? Are we willing to allow it to access a large amount of deep personal data about ourselves, just to promote this illusion that we are infinitely fascinated by it?

"Whether companion robots are used to manipulate us or sell other products to us depends largely on the underlying business model," Danaher said. "Apple makes money by selling products rather than selling personal data; Facebook does the opposite. Both are successful companies that have chosen different paths. Unfortunately, many companies have recently followed the "surveillance capitalism" model. I think We should pay close attention to companion robots that rely on this business model; but this is not the only possible business model."

The business model that drives the robots of the future may already be familiar-but what about the model itself? Dr. Kate Devlin, author of "Opening: Science, Sex and Robotics", insists that, at least for the foreseeable future, we should stay away from humanoid robots altogether. Especially those who look like Jude Law.

This is not entirely fair: Devlin’s problem lies in Law’s appearance in the 2001 Steven Spielberg film "Artificial Intelligence", in which Law plays the choreographer Joe, aiming to become the ultimate "lady robot" ("Once You have a lover robot," he whispered to a nervous and trembling first customer, "you never want a real man again." His program charm (the lover robot has a small speaker To set emotions, activated by disturbing neck spasms-but it is also possible to insist that their client is a "goddess" out of breath, and they "shut them in") makes Devlin cringe.

"He has one purpose, and that is to provide happiness to women," she acknowledged Lao's character. "But it's done in a very clichéd romantic way. The concert is playing... It's all about'Women want romantic sex! Women want to be pursued!'. People will have sex with male robots. What is it like to have this very gendered, stereotyped expectation."

The author’s logic seems reasonable: men want sex robots that look like beautiful women, women should want sex robots that look like Jude Law. But research has not confirmed this. Devlin described a project in which participants were asked to describe or in some cases design their ideal sex robot. Sex is sex, people are people, and the answers are varied and weird-an imaginary prototype includes a screen with a face: all the fun of the fair from the neck to the bottom, but there is a dedicated pornographic e-reader available in Eyes are highly used for potential mid-course stimulation/inspiration.

Strangely, not only is the Jude Law robot not proposed by the most popular artificial intelligence, but some participants even refused to have sex with things that have...well, facial expressions.

"We interviewed people on the street, just like pop music," Devlin said of her measure of how long passers-by might be ready to participate in the robot hookup. "Some people say,'Yes, if it looks like a person,'-but others say,'Well, if it has a face, it's not.'

"So what are people's expectations? They are instilled with a very special idea of ​​what [robot buddies] should look like. But when you start to say to people,'They can look like anything,' imagination is Will really open."

Perhaps designing companion robots that deliberately do not imitate humans is the answer to the common science fiction question of whether the relationship with robots can be mutually beneficial. A robot with a Kindle as its head is unlikely to deceive many people in a singles bar. When science fiction shows us robot lovers, the vast majority of them are portrayed as humans (at least in appearance). This touches a certain defensiveness in our hearts: when a non-human entity tries to deceive us into thinking it is human, we will feel uneasy or disgusted. This is a very common phenomenon (mainly due to movies and video games). CGI) Own name:'Uncanny Valley'. Maybe in the future, humanoid robot engineering will develop to the point where we really can't distinguish (without signed waiver and toolbox) whether a "person" is flesh and blood or wires and circuits. But at the same time, perhaps the best answer is not to bother to imitate humans and explore weird things.

"You can form friendship; you can form a bond," said Devlin of the non-human machine. "This connection is one-way, but if the machine shows you any form of reaction, then you can project onto it and feel social. We treat machines socially, because we are social animals, which is almost enough to make We accept it. Not a delusion, but to suspend our suspicion and feel connected. People are connected to their vacuum cleaners: my vacuum cleaner is called Babbage, I watch him run around, I pick him up, I Tell him, "Don't go there! "It’s like owning a robot pet — but I know very well that it’s just a piece of plastic. When people feel lonely and want to chat, they talk to their Alexa. So yes: you can feel one there. Kind of bond.

"This is different from human friendship: it is a new social category that is emerging that we have never really seen before."

As for the issue of reciprocity, Devlin believes that robots have no obstacles in human relationships.

"You make many people say,'Oh, that's not true friendship; that's not true.'," Devlin said with a sneer. "Well, if the feeling is real, if you enjoy it, is there a problem? The same people say you can’t have true love unless it is rewarded. This is the biggest lie I have ever heard, because there are too many People fall in love with people they have never even met! Fictional people! Movie stars! Everyone! These feelings are very, very effective for people who are experiencing them."

"How are you here?" When Twombly and Catherine were sitting, the waitress asked in the perfect movie waitress time, silently handling the former's new relationship with Samantha.

"Okay," Catherine blurted out. "We are fine. We were married before, but he couldn't control me; he wanted me to take Prozac, and now he is madly in love with his laptop."

In 2013, the script of Spike Jones' "She" won the Oscar for Best Screenplay (it received four other nominations including Best Picture). A year later, the script written by Alex Garland for "Ex Machina" will be nominated for the same award, and it can be said that the same conclusion: we are a public love Love species. If we are lucky, we were born into a caring family, who like to squander the stuffed animal toys lost under the hotel bed. If we are not born lucky or love to be taken away by the environment (such as the emergence of a pandemic), we will look for it in our mobile phones, our digital assistants-even our robot vacuum cleaners. We project, we anthropomorphize, we look for things to love—perhaps especially when we are alone.

With the big tech companies now actively wooing us-giving their artificial intelligence names and installing them in everything from televisions to headsets-maybe the question is not whether we have the ability to fall in love with robots, but rather When will the stars align for each of us to meet our special "someone".

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