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SSML for Sex Robots Read chapter Read first chapter

2018 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Being Riajuu [ https://static-content.springer.com/image/chp%3A10.1007%2F978-3-319-76369-9_2/MediaObjects/464893_1_En_2_Figa_HTML.png ]

A Phenomenological Analysis of Sentimental Relationships with “Digital Others”

Author : Nicola Liberati

Published in: Love and Sex with Robots

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to study the possibility of sentimental relationships between human and digital beings. We are interested in what kind of “other” a digital being can be for a human subject because it is the first step in understanding how our intimate lives will be shaped by the introduction of new digital technologies.
Today computer technologies are growing fast, and they are becoming pervasive. They are intertwining their digital content with every aspect of our everyday lives and they are placing themselves as our “companions”. This co-existence is so tight that it is possible to think of sentimental relationships growing between users and these devices. We will analyse these relationships from a phenomenological perspective by introducing the Japanese term riajuu [ https://static-content.springer.com/image/chp%3A10.1007%2F978-3-319-76369-9_2/MediaObjects/464893_1_En_2_Figb_HTML.png ] which tackles the problem of having a sentimental and intimate relationship with a digital being. Moreover, thanks to Husserl’s phenomenology, we will show how it is important to discern the digital content of the “other” from how this entity relates to the subject.
We will show if the subject can build with a digital other an intimate relationship even when users know it is not a human person they are dealing with.

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Footnotes
1
See, for example, [4, 8, 15, 25, 26, 37, 41].
 
2
See also the website of the conference We Robot http://​robots.​law.​miami.​edu/​2016/​.
 
4
Actually the term is used for many purposes like to have a joyful existence. However, it is also used to identify a person with a relationships with other human beings instead of relationships with digital entities.
 
5
Obviously we have not to think of it as a clear definition because, in that case, we would face serious problems. For example there are cases where the human person is partially digital because they use digital technologies in their bodies or they are kept alive by digital technologies such as in hospitals. In these cases people are not easily separable from the digital technologies used, and so it is not clear where the subject ends and where the technology begins.
 
6
We use the term “real” as oppose to “virtual” and “digital”.
 
7
See also the new product Gatebox http://​gatebox.​ai/​.
 
9
When the subject look at an object, the intentional act is fulfilled with the content of the object. The object in itself is not related to one intentional act only, but it enmeshed in a network of “empty” intentions directed towards the hidden aspects of the objects and towards the expectations the subject has. The perception of an object is always founded on the interplay between empty intentions and their fulfilment.
 
10
One of the main problem Husserl, the father of phenomenology, dealt is the connection between judgements and world. We can say “there is a computer on the table”, but how does it relate to the fact that there is a computer on the table?
Husserl criticised Brentano’s notion of intentional act because the subject does not perform just a “mere” mental act [2], but the act of intentionality ends in the “external object”. The sentence “there is a computer on the table” points to what is on the table and, more specifically, it points to the computer on it. The subject performs an intentional act by directing themselves towards an object, and the object answers to this call by fulfilling this act with its content. The subject is always connected to the world, and the fulfilment is the element which identifies such a tight connection [20]. Moreover, in Husserl, this peculiar form of “identity” [20] between what is intended and what is in the world is an element of perception too.
As Crowell clearly points out, it is not so easy to think of an application of the fulfilment in perception, but it is possible [7]. Judgements are different from perception, and so they do not work in the same way. One is related to the truth of a sentence, and so it is general, symbolic and predicative while the other one is related to perception which is individual, non-symbolic and pre-predicative. However, without going into details on how this passage between the two fields is possible, we can just say the perception of an objects always comes in a sort of fulfilment of a previous “emptiness”. The object has hidden aspects which are always expected but emptily indented. Therefore, when the subject perceives these hidden aspects, the expectations can be fulfilled or unfulfilled by the content of the object [13]. For this reason Husserl always thinks of perception as a “network” [17] of partially empty and partially fulfilled intentions, and he founds perception on this play between emptiness and fulfilment [3].
We can see how the fulfilment is related to the expectations the subject has towards some hidden aspects of the object. The fulfilment is produced by the identity of the object’s content with these expectations [42]. Thus, from the simple fact every object has hidden faces and these hidden faces are related to some kind of expectations and their fulfilment, we can easily deduce that perception is founded on fulfilment. As far as we think of perception as an intentional act [31] of a subject directed towards the external object, we need to take into account also its possible fulfilment and unfulfilment as its founding parts.
 
11
According to phenomenology, even if it does not take into account digital technologies, the origin of the object is part of the object’s content and it is embedded in different horizons [9]. In Husserl’s phenomenology objects carry aspects of their past story with themselves and these aspects are embedded in their content. For example, a piece of wood curved by a skilled artisan in a particular shape carries with itself relations to the instrument used to make it. The object carries its origin in itself and so also if it is created by a digital technology or not. Thus, the “realness” and the “digitalness” of the object are content and they can fulfil the intentional acts of the subject.
 
12
We are not interested in the other elements of intersubjectivity highlighted by Schütz [23] because we are not interested in intersubjectivity per se, but on how these “others” relate to the subjects. On the limits of Schützian philosophy applied to robotics see [22].
 
13
We do not refer to Levinas because, even if he refers explicitly to the other as resistant, he also always think of the other as an ethical other: “Le visage se refuse à la possession, à mes pouvoirs” [24]. We do not want this kind of ethical aspects, but just the fact the others’ actions are intertwined with the subject’s ones.
 
14
William Gibson in his book Neuromancer [10] showed how a hacker used to live in the digital world would look at his real body in a very different way of other ordinary people. Case, who is a hacker living in this futuristic cyberpunk world, clearly looks at his own “meaty” body as something imperfect and to be surpassed.
 
15
We are not saying the experiences had in the virtual reality are “bodiless” [36], but just that they are experienced with the digital body and not with the everyday one. The actions of this “digital other” can be interlocked with the ones of the subject’s avatar, but they are not interlocked with the ones of the body in the every day. Thus, this “digital other” cannot be resistant for the subject in the everyday world.
 
16
It is possible because there are sensors which detect such an action and so they can make the digital girl “feel” the first subject kiss.
 
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Metadata
Title
Being Riajuu [ ]
Author
Nicola Liberati
Copyright Year
2018
Book
Love and Sex with Robots

Print ISBN: 978-3-319-76368-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-76369-9

Copyright Year: 2018

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76369-9_2

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