It is a truth universally acknowledged that one realizes how best to write a Substack post two hours after it has been sent out into the world. Usually I shrug off this feeling, but for the sake of clarifying what’s interesting about the question of “robot pets,” I want to add a thought to my last post.
Recap: The question is, would people ever want to have robot dogs, cats, or other pets?
I think this is a knot of several questions, about which the clearest way to think would be to ponder this statement:
I really loved X, but then X became inconvenient and annoying, and really expensive too. X just doesn’t do what I want any more. So I went down to that place where they said they’d take care of it, and I dropped X off. I’m going to get a new one soon.
Option 1: X is a child.
If X is my daughter, then I am — psychologically, morally, legally — a monster. A parent’s love for a child should be stronger than irritation, frustration, cost or any other practical consideration. My own offspring has a bizarre and inexplicable tendency to not do what I want, to like stuff I hate and to loathe stuff I like. And all of that is a feature, not a bug. The fruit and the proof of my love for him is that his choices are his own. (After the years in which he isn’t capable of making sensible choices, of course.)
Option 2: X is a dog.
If X is my dog, then I am just another one of those pet owners who decided the gig wasn’t worth it. (According to these stats, about 800,000 dogs and 800,000 cats were taken by owners to U.S. shelters in 2023. Three times that number arrived as strays, which must include a number of animals unceremoniously dumped by their “pet parents.”) Abandoning a pet, I’m not going to get a lot of high-fives but I am not considered a criminal or a psychopath.
Why? Because my pet is entirely under my control. The law bans gratuitous cruelty, but outside of that I decide how the animal lives or dies; what it eats; what it can enjoy and what pleasures are denied it. Sure, I can decide (I have, in fact, decided, at great veterinary cost) that “I would do anything for my beloved cat.” It is my right to commit myself in this way. But, as with all self-binding, I can unbind myself whenever I choose.
Unlike my relationship to my child, the terms of my relationship to my cat are largely up to me. Can you really love a being over which you have total power? Maybe not. This is why Yi-Fu Tuan distinguishes between the affection we feel for things we completely control and the love we feel for independent beings.
Option 3: X is a laptop.
If X is my computer, I’m just being rational and sensible. I may feel some affection for the device (I have, in fact, been known to say “I love my new Macbook Air.”) This affection derives from my pleasure in the way that it does work I assign it, and my sense of the things it makes easy for me to do. If it stops doing its job, it’s time to chuck the thing.
When we ask if people could ever have robot pets, we’re asking if they could have pet-type affection for a machine. (We know they sometimes do, as when they pamper their Roombas.) This raises a whole bunch of other questions, including: Is the “love” in each condition — human, pet, machine — the same emotion, experienced at different strengths? Or are these three different experiences? Whatever the nature of this emotion, how much of it is triggered by circumstance? (Do we take care of a dog because we love it, or do we love it because we take care of it?)
And: Is one form of affection “the real deal,” while the others are just pretend versions? If so, what kind of pretense is it? Is is like the pretend play of children, or like actors’ playing of a role, or like day-dreaming? And if we pretend long enough and hard enough, does the thing we pretend to feel become real to us?
My hunch is that the answers to those questions leave room for — eventually — robot pets that people will care about as much or as little as they do real animals. But I don’t know if we have anything approaching answers yet.
Yesterday morning I watched a young cardinal on my roof, singing. He was practically glowing red in the strong sunlight and his piercing pew-pew-pew was beautiful. I don’t think virtual reality or robotics can ever give me what that bird did. But a robot can aspire to do just as much for me as a bird in a cage.
A note about the photo: The cat jumped in the pot and looked around. I took the photo before she jumped out because I thought it was funny. No animals were harmed — or even picked up — in the making of this post.
I think having a "pet" robot is another of those "infinite variety" promises that actually display only one world-view. I don't want to project onto a machine. I liked my dog because I did not control her. Yes, sure she was well-behaved, but she liked to run deer at night and come back half crazy and ready to be grounded. She was beautiful on the sofa, with crossed paws. She fought with raccoons over who owned the garbage can. She was by turns warm and cozy and brave and feisty. She was not the invention of some 25-year-old white guy. Must my whole life be taken over by these already-imagined routes of life experience-- routes not imagined by someone like me?