Sex Robots, The End of Love

There are more ways of connecting and communicating via technology than ever before. Yet loneliness is on the rise as we begin to experience an 'attachment crisis' in forming and maintaining intimate relationships.  Enter sex robots. Built from the bodies of sex dolls, they are created to help humans – particularly men – cope with our inability to connect. In this bold and trenchant critique, Kathleen Richardson explores important questions surrounding this emerging technology. What does the rise of sex robots tell us about the way that women and girls are imagined? To what extent are porn, prostitution and child sexual exploitation driving the attachment crisis? The author argues that sex robots are produced within a framework of 'property relations' – in which egocentric Man (and his disconnection from Woman) shapes the building of robots and AI. Can this tide of destruction and disconnection be turned, and what would a revolution for the love of humanity look like? Presenting a passionate case for the abolition of practices that cast women as property, Sex Robots: The End of Love is essential reading for students and scholars of robot ethics, anthropology, gender studies, philosophy of technology, sociology and related fields, as well as anyone concerned for the future of human relationships.