More Than Merely Human: How Science Fiction Pop-Culture Influences Our Desires for the Cybernetic

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• 作者：Rebecca Gibson
• 关键词：Sci ; fi ; Pop culture ; Android ; Cybernetics ; Sexual attraction ; Romance
• 刊名：Sexuality & Culture
• 出版年：2017
• 出版时间：March 2017
• 年：2017
• 卷：21
• 期：1
• 页码：224-246
• 全文大小：
• 刊物主题：Social Sciences, general; Personality and Social Psychology; Psychology, general; Regional and Cultural Studies;
• 出版者：Springer US
• ISSN：1936-4822
• 卷排序：21

文摘

In this paper I will explore cybercultural thinking about inter-gender relations, seeking to understand certain mythologies about love and sex in the digital age. I will look at the burgeoning market for AI based companions, and seek to understand what causes people to look outside of the company of flesh-and-blood humans. What sensations or emotional needs are fulfilled by choosing a cybercompanion over a human? Is this a gender motivated choice? In this age of computer-dominated interaction, where we are told that more people reach for a keyboard than a hand, I hope to understand what can be learned about the human condition and its ever-changing cultural mores. To understand these questions, I will examine pop-cultural themes in science-fiction, and then relate these themes to real-world developments in cyber-technology. These include cyborgs who are ‘real enough’ to pass for human, such as the Replicants in “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”; androids who are fully functional, but somewhat less than or other than human, such as Lieutenant Commander Data in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”; demonstrations of new technology using robot/android story lines, such as Sony Playstation’s “Kara” by Quantic Dream project; and created, near-human races, such as Margaret Atwood’s “Crakers” and David Mitchell’s “Fabricants.” I will look at how human characters relate sexually and romantically to non-human characters, and then examine the phenomenon of medical cybernetic augmentation as a way of exploring when we are no longer merely human, but still ‘human enough.’