The Desiring Algorithm. The Sex Appeal of the Inorganic

Abstract

Each new era brings with it new technologies and new challenges to civilization. The impetuous technological development is changing the economy and work more and more every day; to the point of making the passage from agrarian society to industrial society seem like a trifle. Nevertheless, if there is widespread awareness of the general issues of society, there is definitely less on the way in which anthropomorphic robots (increasingly in an emotional and cognitive relationship with human beings) are radically modifying intimate and exclusive spheres such as sexuality and love. An epochal passage is being announced from an organic sexuality (driven by desire and pleasure) to an inorganic, artificial sexuality, suspended in an abstract excitement, always at hand and disengaged from categories such as beauty, forms and age. In this paper, we will discuss the plausibility of an emotional relationship between robots and human beings and its ethical implications. It is probable, in fact, that soon there will be self-aware robots, capable of experiencing feelings such as love, joy, suffering, pain and pleasure. If this scenario is realized, will we continue to think that they are only machines, or will we recognize the moral relevance that they do not have today?