“Sherry Turkle of MIT once fell in love with a robot.”
This thread on Metafilter is quite the thing. But also make sure to read this comment.
We named our Roomba — Ricky — and all it did was vacuum the carpet and smash into things but it had these weird person-like qualities. When Ricky got stuck in a corner and started furiously backing up and rotating, backing up and rotating, we’d frown and stand watch over him, concerned: “What are you doing, Ricky?” When he couldn’t get himself unstuck, we’d sigh, pick him up — “Oh, calm down” we’d say when we whirred in the air — and put him back down, like he was a toddler learning to walk. And when he finished cleaning the room and sang that — er, emitted that triumphant little chime, his joy was our joy.
