Jenn Shreve (Wired) interviews Lee GutKind about his new book, Almost Human: Making Robots Think
WN: You cross paths with some very “realistic,” humanlike robots. Did you ever get used to those encounters?
Gutkind: To me it was constantly off-putting. The roboticists didn’t necessarily find it uncomfortable, but they did have a difficult time figuring out what their relationship to these creatures should be. When they began designing Zoë, they referred to the robot as it. It was a concept, an idea and a chassis. But as Zoë became a real thing that would respond to their wishes and ideas, they gradually began using the pronoun she or her to describe Zoë.
via Digg Post
