The Future of Humans and Emotional Machines

This book explores human-machine interaction in Japan, providing a new focus on how and in what form people build affective bonds to new technologies. To gain insights into the feelings, identities, fears, and desires of people in our contemporary society, this book brings together perspectives from Japanese studies, cultural and literary studies, anthropology, robotics, philosophy, and game studies. Through these lenses, it reveals how narratives about machines are not merely reflections of technological capabilities but, when it comes to emotional attachment, are deeply embedded in cultural practices and social values. In addition to discussions by leading scholars in the field from around the world, this book includes two original literary contributions by award-winning Japanese authors, Yoko Tawada and Kei'ichiro Hirano, as well as interviews with Japanese roboticists, providing readers with the rare opportunity to learn about the motivations and inspirations behind technological advances in human-machine interaction. Shedding light on the mutual influence of academics, producers, and artists in the field of the attachment to new technologies and encouraging a dialogue between them, this book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of Japanese studies, cultural and literary studies, and anthropology. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Elena Giannoulis is Professor of Japanese Literature in the Department of History and Cultural Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin, Germany.

1. Introduction: Astro Boy's Grandchildren-Tales of Longing, Disappointment, and New Heroes in Japan Part 1: The Family Album of Emotional Machines: Pepper and His Successors 2. Representations of Emotional Capacity in Human-Robot Interaction: From Astro Boy to Pepper 3. Character, Desire, Infrastructure: Manga/Anime Fandom Preceding and Predicting Technological Experimentation in Japan 4. Characteristics of Artificial Intelligence in Japan Part 2: Between Promises and Realities: A Critique of Popular Media and Public Narrative 5. Hearts Meet Wires: Navigating the Ethical and Social Implications of Care Robotics 6. On Posthuman Imaginaries and Japanese Robot Culture: A Techno-Oriental Strand of Cruel Optimism 7. Human-Machine Relations from Abacus to AI in the Sanrio anime Aggressive Retsuko (Aggretsuko) 8. An Anthropological View of Social Robots: Ontological Indefiniteness and the Subjective Experience of Care Technologies in Japan Part 3: Inheriting Human Problems: Negotiating Dreams, Fears, and Gender 9. Kawaii Aesthetics in Human-Machine Romance: Reimagining Gender, Cuteness, and Digital Intimacy in A.I. Love You (2016) 10. Reframing Socio-Cultural Malaise in the Technocene: A Psychosocial Reading of Kobo Abe's Inter Ice Age 4 and Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun Part 4: Blurring Boundaries: Where Does the Human End, Where Does the Machine Begin? 11. Beyond an Ontological Divide: Possibilities of Emotional Connections between Humans and Androids in Shuko Murase's Anime Ergo Proxy 12. The Obsolescence of Robot Commodity and Human-Machine Relationship: The Case of Two Anime 13. OriHime Robot Avatars, Affect, and Performance Digression 1: Artistic Visions on Human-Machine Attachments 14. My Robot, Blurting Out (translated by Jeffrey Angles) 15. Humans and AI humans-On Ambiguity and Change Digression 2: The Impact of the Popular Imaginary on Robotics Engineering in Japan 16. "We can expect the relationship between humans and robots to be of a different kind from that between humans"-An interview with Tatsuya Nomura 17. "Behavior that complements humans is an essential characteristic of social agents"-An interview with Hirotaka Osawa 18. "By creating communication robots, I would like to ensure that there are no people who feel socially isolated"-An interview with Hidenobu Sumioka