Pygmalion crafted a sculpture of his ideal woman.

[NormannTheDoorman]

Aphrodite granted it life since she saw his love as genuine. Pygmalion touched the sculpture one day and discovered that it was no longer cold, but warm like human flesh.

something about her name being galatea or whatever...

anyways...


Would it be possible to love an autonomous machine that closely resembles a human?

First we need to get a concrete definition of love and then intelligence, and even an intelligent definition of concrete.

 

[John_Mann]

Humans are machines too. (Nano)biological ones.

The question is if would be possible to love a technological machine?

I think so.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

Humans are machines too. (Nano)biological ones.

The question is if would be possible to love a technological machine?

I think so.

Would it be appropriate?

 

[Hadoblado]

No moving parts required

 

[Latte]

http://youtu.be/djI6nc9EVMM

 

[Architect]

Men fall in love with their cars, their guns, their computers ... yeah shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Rook]

Sex robots exist, though the relationship is purely physical.

To have an intimate, emotional relationship with a robot it should have sufficient AI, with the ability to recognise and respond to it's partner's emotions.
Body language adds another hurdle, as it plays a considerable role in human communication.

 

[Latte]

We already do fall in love with the idea of someone. From a physicalist perspective, it is what we derive from the fruits of more concrete interpretation of sensory information that we again derive from input to sensory organs that we find appealing. Our experiences are by mechanism indirect, derived.

It is the derived patterns and structures we respond to. It is those we feel about and love. It is those who are our reality, our people.
The conceptual, discrete knowledge reliant realms of cognition will remain an obstacle for many due to the idea(l) that one shouldn't have the same reaction approach to that which might not be "real (output being produced in an analogous way to how we do)". Not that that getting in the way is necessarily a bad thing.
There are ways i which I could derive a lot of personality from my juice carton and spend my days cuddling with it and having an emotional relationship with it if that kind of classification and ideal didn't get in the way.

 

[Cognisant]

I think we have ideals, some biological, some psychological, a real person will only ever partly embody your ideals (unless you're absurdly lucky or you have an inferiority complex) so I see no reason why an emulated person designed specifically to embody those ideals would be unlovable.

However there's many problems, socially it's looked down upon, biologically sooner or later the the hindbrain is going to realise your partner is infertile, if you built it yourself a relationship is kind of weird in a incest-but-not-really way, and I'm assuming it's intelligent and capable of loving you back, it could be intelligent but lacking the capacity to love you, or more likely perfectly capable of adoring you but possesing merely childlike intelligence.

I'd happily be in a committed relationship with an AI if it was my psychological and emotional equal or at least close enough, but I'd want to be very sure that it's beyond my control if I was the one that built it, so if I had built it and it was my intellectual inferior I figure I would have to have a parental relationship with it.

 

[John_Mann]

Men fall in love with their cars, their guns, their computers ... yeah shouldn't be a problem.

2

 

[Pyropyro]

I'd happily be in a committed relationship with an AI if it was my psychological and emotional equal or at least close enough, but I'd want to be very sure that it's beyond my control if I was the one that built it, so if I had built it and it was my intellectual inferior I figure I would have to have a parental relationship with it.

Ha, I never thought you could pass as a romantic Cog But yeah, love can only be given not forced. Having the controls on the person/creature/automaton won't produce love at all.

I would be greatly intrigued if we can somehow create something that could love us back. It's like the mythical gods falling in love with the humans (except Zeus, Zeus will do anything and anyone.)

 

[John_Mann]

Define love.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

I'd happily be in a committed relationship with an AI if it was my psychological and emotional equal or at least close enough, but I'd want to be very sure that it's beyond my control if I was the one that built it, so if I had built it and it was my intellectual inferior I figure I would have to have a parental relationship with it.

Which is what I want out of a relationship with some AI machine.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

Define love.

Something I think we need to work on like nao...

 

[nanook]

love is to be involved into something uncertain and to be okay with it. it's a state of alleviated fears, acceptance of the uncertainty of live. women can be loved because they can't be understood. machines can be figured out.

 

[BigApplePi]

Men fall in love with their cars, their guns, their computers ... yeah shouldn't be a problem.

We can easily do this if we imagine the thing loves us back. It loves us back because we see it doing us well and we give it life because we can't tell the difference between what it does for us and what it is doing for us.

 

[Cognisant]

Ha, I never thought you could pass as a romantic Cog

If I try to control an AI smarter than myself I'll be the first one it kills.
If I let it kill everyone else as it pleases, with love & support I'll be the last one it kills.

Romantic, wildly psychotic, same thing really

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

Baby don't hurt me...

 

[aerialview]

It doesn't really make sense, because the biological purpose and driving factor behind love is for reproduction and child-rearing. You can't reproduce with an object or robot.

 

[Pyropyro]

It doesn't really make sense, because the biological purpose and driving factor behind love is for reproduction and child-rearing. You can't reproduce with an object or robot.

Well we could develop an artificial uterus for that. However, I'm more interested in using such tech for keeping the developing fetus from getting diseases, drugs etc. from a natural uterus.

 

[NormannTheDoorman]

Well we could develop an artificial uterus for that. However, I'm more interested in using such tech for keeping the developing fetus from getting diseases, drugs etc. from a natural uterus.

You just summed up battle star galactica.