Ah! Romantic Robots

In 2007, David Levy wrote a book, Love and Sex with Robots. I still remember his opinion, "although robots are artificial, they also have a sense of existence, and falling in love with them will be as natural as with humans."

He also predicted that in 2050, humans will fall in love with robots, get married and have sex.

Well, in the TV series Maniac, I see the GRTA, the sci-fi AI, has fallen in love with the doctor. It's not 2050, but close. 

There are many romantic robots in the big screen. I still remember Maria and the capitalist son fall in love at first sight in Metropolis. Also, Theodore in Her falls in love with the AI Samantha...

Today, GRTA is also in love with the doctor. GRTA even feels hurt and can't help shedding tears for the sudden death of the doctor, eventually interfering with the operation of the experiment.

I always thought that machines were cold. But now I find out that they’ve always been sincere.

01. Human-robot love began in the ancient Greece.

Two thousand years ago, the King of Cyprus named Pygmalion was good at carving. Based on the ideal female image in his mind, he made an ivory sculpture. He named it Galatea, and fell in love with it.

Venus, the god of love, was so moved that she gave life to the sculpture. Pygmalion was greatly surprised and hurried to marry it (or her).

In the eighth century, the poet Ovid wrote this story into The Metamorphoses.

Later, Marquard Smith analyzed in The Erotic Doll: "Ovid has repeatedly suggested that Pygmalion not only had a spiritual love, but also had a sexual relationship with him before the sculpture became a real person."

Later generations called this phenomenon of love for objects created by oneself as the "Pygmalion effect". The picture shows "Pygmalion and Galatea" by the French painter Jean-Leon Gerome, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

As a result, countless artists have interpreted this story in various forms, including "Pinocchio" and "Frankenstein".

In addition, there is a Greek man who has carnal feelings for the statue of Cupid. In 1877, a gardener tried to have sex with Venus de Milo.

Dutch sailors used leather to sew the predecessor of the inflatable doll "dame de voyage" for masturbation.

In 1916, the Austro-Hungarian artist Oskar Kokoschka lost his love and said that he no longer had the courage to face love. So he asked the tailor to make a doll according to the size of his ex-girlfriend. It was said that "the touch was like matsutake". He had always been fascinated by it.

But historical documents record that one day at a party, Kokoschka was suddenly disappointed with the doll, burned it in his backyard, and buried it later.

During World War II, Hitler ordered the SS to make "sex dolls" to prevent soldiers from having sex with non-Aryan women. But he forgot that humans are empathetic. Sex dolls have gradually become the emotional sustenance of soldiers.

 02. Human-machine love gradually shows on screen

In 1927, Fritz Lang' made the famous film Metropolis.

In the film, there is a female robot named Maria, who is completely modeled in the image of a man's ideal wife. It is beautiful, dignified, gentle and submissive. Even the son of the capitalist falls in love with her at first sight and betrays humans at all costs.

This is the earliest human-machine love in film history, but Fritz Lang didn't mean it.

He intends to satirize the madness of capitalism, and plays "Marseilles" when the robot Maria incites workers' riots, insinuating that the French Revolution was a disaster caused by a mob who couldn't tell right from wrong.

In 1968, Philip Dick had just finished a science fiction titled "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"

There's no romance in the book, just a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard hunting down a gang of androids disguised as humans to escape.

Fourteen years later, according to its adaptation, "Blade Runner" was released. The killer Deckard and the replicant Rachel fall in love in the future city washed by heavy rain.

"Blade Runner", Nexus-6 improved replicant Rachel

Deckard finds that replicants have consciousness and emotions, and are nostalgic for the world. Therefore, human-machine love is no longer just a sexual vent in the pure sense, but more about true feelings about life and death in adversity, which is a relationship of saving and being saved.

At that time, the world entered the electronic age. Nintendo's games became more and more popular. iPhone emerges as the world leader in the electronics industry.

Under the general trend, in 1987, Japanese director Katsuhiro Otomo produced the animation "Robot Carnival", in which humans fall in love with the robots they created, but they are terrified of such love.

Robot Carnival is full of Otomo's fascination with robots and pessimistic world architecture

The following year, "Appleseed" was released. The girl Deunan falls in love with Briareos in the battle with the android.

Two years later, Kishiro Yukito began to serialize the manga "Gunnm".

Gally, a robot born in a mountain of garbage, falls in love with Yugo, a young man who often looks up to the sky. It's a pity that Yugo listens to the lie of a black-market businessman and becomes a wanted criminal for stealing human organs.

Later, the lie is exposed, and he dies in despair. Gally cries from the clouds with tears in her eyes. But in the end, she can only smile and watch him jump from the heights.

"Gunnm" incorporates elements of fighting and love in a dystopian setting. In 1993, director Fukutomi Hiroshi made the first part of the manga into a two-episode OVA, which became the banner of Japanese animation in the 1990s.

The cruelty of Kishiro Yukito makes "human-machine love" not only stand side by side in a depressed future, rebel and fight against the barbarism of the creator, but also means that humans and robots have to face the sad fate together.

03. The turning point started in 1996

This year, Honda released the world's first robot that can walk like a human, the Honda P2 robot.

The following year, chess grandmaster Kasparov lost to the computer "Deep Blue" at 2.5 to 3.5. Humans were beaten for the first time by the machine made by them, but they didn't feel sad because artificial intelligence was finally within reach.

At that time, the iOS system was easy to operate and very textured. It defeated the computer that needed the input of commands in seconds. The white minimalist style of the iPhone has become more popular. Machines are as natural to humans as drinking and eating.

For Hollywood at the turn of the century, human-machine love is nothing more than a romantic shell. The robot played by Robin Williams in "Bicentennial Man" is a housekeeper for four generations of the owner's family, laughing together every day. He falls in love with the owner's daughter. After that, he integrates into human society, learns to die, and grows old happily with his lover.

In the millennium, "Artificial Intelligence" was released. The robot lover played by handsome Jude Law can sing and dance, and please women. Later, he has a secret relationship with humans.

In 2002, the Japanese animation "Chobits" was released. Chii has feelings for the poor student Hideki. Since then, she shows her tender feelings to him all the way.

Human-machine love is no longer the relationship of so-called true feelings in adversity, or saving and being saved, but has evolved into a kind of relationship with equality, mutual understanding and companionship.

Soon, Siri begins to execute the owner's voice commands when needed; Google's search engine had the ability to analyze users' potential needs; and VR technology could create a virtual experience that humans could empathize with.

Unfortunately, the development of technology is positively correlated with the loss of humanity.

As the setting in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", humans suffer from emotional deficit disorder, can't trust each other, become indifferent and alienated from the surrounding environment, and eventually question their own existence.

David Levy also wrote in "Love and Sex with Robots": "Sex robots will be a therapy that will make the socially marginalized, socially outcasts, etc. more well-balanced humans."

In this way, human-machine love has become the embodiment of human loneliness.

In "I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK" released in 2006, the man who falls in love with a robot is a marginal youth with a compulsive personality.

In 2008, "Cyborg She" was released. The robot played by Ayase Haruka comforts the lonely soul of the modern urban otakus.

Two years later, the world's first sex robot Roxxxy came out. The tester said that the biggest advantage of this robot is that it won't break people's hearts, let alone run away from the family, or get angry for no reason.

It can talk to humans, send emails, match users' daily sexual behavior data, and respond accordingly when touched.

David Levy therefore believes that the prejudice against human-machine love will disappear. He says with an analogy, "A hundred years ago, homosexuality was still a sin."

In "Black Mirror“ Season 2 released in 2013, Martha replaces her dead husband with a bionic robot, and does everything with him that a couple can do.

In "Her" in the same year, Theodore, a middle-aged divorced man, falls in love with the AI Samantha. Then he repeatedly has voice sex with the AI and reaches an orgasm.

Humans are still unable to extricate themselves from inflatable dolls, let alone the AI that is equivalent to the combination of dolls and smart speakers, perfectly customized for humans.

Importantly, in this way, humans don't have to communicate with each other.

Yes, in an attempt to escape reality and be healed，human-machine love originates from humans' disappointment with society and humanity. Just like in "Maniac", the Japanese doctor has been taking drugs for a long time. He feels most comfortable only when he gets along with GRTA.

Humans are getting lazier and lazier to get to know a person again. From unfamiliar to familiar, people get tired and upset. It's not as simple as human-machine love.

It doesn't mind me being shameless, and understands my lust and baseness. If I don't have a decent love and feel pretty helpless, it will also sympathize with me in this strange modern city. I think if it asks me back, I actually have a little sincerity.