Darling makes a strong case that we should look to animals for an idea of how our relationship with robots will unfold ... Darling has interesting insights and marshals her arguments well. Yet I’m less optimistic than she is about the next wave of robotic automation in the world of work, which is predicted to make between one in six and one in ten jobs obsolete ... You don’t have to be suffering from a Frankenstein complex to worry that the machines of the future may yet be used to subordinate us.
Darling lays out in detail the vexing issues—robot rights, robot accountability, our fears of a robot takeover, our deep-seated anthropomorphism that leads to surprising attachments to these machines—more than resolving them. But it’s a thoughtful, constructive starting point.
Darling engagingly examines robots and their uses in relation to our interactions with animals ... A minor shortcoming of this book is Darling’s cursory attention to the problem of abuse, for if animals suffer so much hardship at human hands, so might those machines. Still, she provides a useful addition to a body of literature that is growing at a rapid pace ... A provocative work of ethics that may prove altogether timely given the state of the technology.
... upbeat if inconsistent ... While entertaining, Darling wanders out on tangents (her treatment of the cat lady trope, for example) that lack cohesion. Readers curious about AI’s ethical conundrums, though, will find this a breezy enough primer.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
