Gabfest Reads: When a Sex Robot Catches Feelings

This episode explores the intriguing and complex themes of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and human-machine relationships as portrayed in Sierra Greer's novel about a sex robot named Annie.

1. The novel explores deep philosophical questions about consciousness and the ethical treatment of sentient machines.
2. It challenges the reader to consider the implications of advanced AI in everyday human relationships.
3. The dynamic between Annie and her owner Doug illustrates power imbalances and dependency.
4. The story serves as an allegory for existing societal issues, such as the objectification and mistreatment of individuals.
5. Greer uses the novel to provoke thought about future technological capabilities and their potential impact on society.

1: Introduction and Overview

David Plotz introduces the novel's central theme and invites author Sierra Greer to discuss the inspiration and key concepts behind her book. David Plotz: "What a book. I tore through Sierra Greer's novel..."

2: World Building and Character Dynamics

Discussion on the detailed setting of the novel and the roles designed for robots like Annie in a fictional society. Sierra Greer: "Annie is designed to be the perfect girlfriend..."

3: Ethical Considerations and Human-like Qualities

The conversation shifts to the ethical dilemmas posed by robots with human emotions and autonomy. Sierra Greer: "Her number one programming is to please her owner..."

4: Implications and Real-world Parallels

Exploration of how the novel mirrors current social issues and what it suggests about future human-AI interactions. David Plotz: "It's not something that happens mentally to her..."

1. Reflect on how technology influences personal relationships.
2. Consider ethical implications of AI development.
3. Engage with speculative fiction to explore complex ideas.
4. Discuss the impact of technology on societal roles.
5. Stay informed about advancements in AI and their potential societal effects.

David Plotz talks with author Sierra Greer about her new book, Annie Bot. They discuss how much discomfort Annie (a “Cuddle Bunny” type of robot) can feel, how the story of a robot is really about the right to control a body, and more.

People

Sierra Greer, David Plotz

Companies

Stella Handy

Books

Anybot by Sierra Greer

Guest Name(s):

Sierra Greer

David Plotz
Welcome to Gabfest reads for June 2024. I'm David Plotz, one of the hosts of the slate political gabfest. Annie Bott. What a book. I tore through Sierra Greer's novel the story of a sex robot, or Android, we'll get into the terminology in a minute, named Annie and her growing recognition of her own self, her consciousness.

This is not a new theme. It's as old as Frankenstein, as new as Clara and the sun. But holy moly, this is a gripping book. It is sexy about sex. There's a lot of interesting sex in the sex robot book, and it is deep about what it means to be human.

Sierra Greer joins me from her home in I don't even know where. Sierra, welcome to Galfast reads. Thank you so much, David. I'm so happy to be here, and I'm connecting with you from Connecticut. Thank you for this joy of a book.

I love worldbuilding, and I especially love subtle worldbuilding, and you do it so well in anybody. Can you tell me some of the key features of the world we arrive at where we meet anybody? What is Stella handy? What are cuddle bunnies and abigails and nannies? Well, any bot is the story of a very advanced female robot named Annie, who's custom designed to be the perfect girlfriend for her human owner, Doug.

Sierra Greer
And he purchases this robot because he's lonely. And there's this company, Stella Handy, that produces companion robots, and they come in three different modes. They can be abigails to help out around the house and cooking. They can be nannies to take care of people, typically children, but they could be people of any age, and then cuddle bunnies who can provide intimacy. When Doug decides to advance Annie to become autodidact didactic, at that point he has to choose one of those three modes to put her in, and he decides to put her in the cuddle buddy mode for the intimacy.

And curiously enough, in doing that, he makes her not as effective as a robot in terms of cleaning up the house. And he actually really likes to have a clean house, too, so he's not able to do that. So that's what the business model is for Stella handy and how that plays. Into Doug's life at Stella handy. Why do you think they settled on those three kinds of models?

Oh, gosh, I guess because those were the things were in the most demand. They were not looking for people to be, for robots to be workers or to be leaders of society or to run politics or to do things that have a larger impact on a larger world. They were looking for basically domestic, domestic personalities to take care of things in the home. And why does the nanny so. Nanny does not have any.

David Plotz
Well, cuddle bunnies are called cuddle bunnies. Nanny is called nanny. Abigail gets a name. Why does Abigail, the cleaning type, have a name of Abigail? Abigail.

Sierra Greer
Abigail used to mean a servant. It used to mean a maid. That's another, really, the word Abigail. Yeah. I did not know that.

David Plotz
It's less clear kind of what kind of male robots there are, but there are male robots, and what do they do? They actually have the same counterpoint jobs as the females do. And it's true, I don't go into them much in the novel. They don't really figure with any importance, but they exist too. So people who would like to have male versions of the same robots can have them, too.

Sierra Greer
The reason that they don't really show up in this novel, too, is because by having an owner who's male and a robot who's female, it really gets to play out a very familiar scene that kind of fits into the power dynamics of our society at large. So they kind of have a one on one version of a larger patriarchal society. So that's why I chose that. So, as you say at the beginning of anybody, Doug, he's put Annie, he's put his Stella into autodidact mode, is happening to Annie as she is in autodidact mode. That makes it different from what she was when she came out of the factory.

Well, she's started to really learn things on her own, and at the beginning, she needs a lot of extra patience because she's not used to doing things on her own. She's used to strictly following commands, and she's supposed to be able to learn to have more independence and do things on her own. He likes it. Doug likes it when she starts acting more human, but that also makes things more complicated for her because having more human qualities means she's more curious and she has longings, and she's interested in trust and deceit and lying. So she becomes a person who she still has to please him.

Her number one programming is to please her owner, and yet, so she's divided because she's supposed to please him by becoming human, but by becoming human is not always pleasing him. So it sets up a real conflict for her and for them both. She has this very sophisticated, fleshly covering. She presents very much as a human to somebody who just meets her on the street. This book is told, it's not told from Annie's perspective directly but it's an omniscient third person perspective that is very much in Annie's consciousness.

David Plotz
What is the satisfaction that she is getting for meeting Doug's needs? How is a robot feeling? Satisfaction, I think for her a lot of the time it's a lack of pain, because when she does displease him, it's acutely uncomfortable for her. She judges his displeasure on a scale of zero to ten, and as soon as he gets to one, she starts to be uneasy, and when he gets to five, that's really uncomfortable for her. So as soon as he gets off of zero, she has to try to figure out ways to make him happier again.

I guess what I mean is, what do you think that discomfort is for a machine? Like, we're going to have the machines that are something like that. How is the machine feeling that? Yeah, I think it would be hard for Annie to express that in a way, because she's a mean, a human. She's a machine, and we only understand things that are described to us for human feelings.

Sierra Greer
So you have to find what you consider to be a human feeling and then find a parallel for that for a machine. So I'm not sure how to answer that any better than to say she has a machine version of human discomfort or human pain. One of the things you do well is you talk about the battery as a constant source. It's a constant subject in the book. And there's a Sense that when she's working hard, when she's mentally working hard, she is draining her battery faster than she was when she wasn't mentally working hard.

Yeah, she's turning through. She turns through her battery because she has to use more memory and more power to contemplate things that are difficult. So Doug is a really interesting person because he's lonely, he's bitter, he's abusive, he's vindictive, but he's also full of love and pathos. Is he pathetic for wanting to have A Cuddle bunny, for wanting to have a robot companion? Well, this is the problem.

I think he is aware that he is pathetic. I think he feels ashamed of having her, and yet he's chosen to have her to try to solve his problem, of his loneliness. So he, too, is really caught in this strange place. You know, the solution he's tried to found for his problem actually exacerbates his problem. So, yeah, I think he's sort of pathetic and sad.

David Plotz
One of the things that I think is so good, good about anybody is that you recognize something that's really important about AI, which I can't stand most of the conversation about AI today, because it seems to me that large language models are not like, it's not AI, it isn't meaningful intelligence that's not meaningfully interacting with the world. And I think over and over again, you make the point that humanness is embodied, that for Annie to be increasingly human, it's not something that happens mentally to her. It's something that happens physically in relationship to human beings and to the world. It's to literally touching things, seeing things, experiencing things. There's no mind body separation.

Her humanness is wrapped up in her physical self too, right? Absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons that the novel is actually pretty far away from our reality, because we, we don't have the biotechnology at all right now, to create somebody who's like Annie, we have AI companions that you can have just online through a phone or through a facetime sort of situation. I heard just the other day on hard fork that 3.5 million people have AI companions through their computers or their telephones at this point. So you can have, like, the psychological or emotional.

Sierra Greer
Well, is it emotional? You can have the intellectual side of a companion through a computer, and they're not super advanced yet, but they exist. But to create somebody like Annie, we can't do yet. And yet we want to play around with this idea because people see it coming. And also, it's just really intriguing to think, well, what would you do with this creature who seems really human, but is also a machine?

And when does she seem more human and less machine? And what are responsibilities to somebody like that? And then is it right to control somebody who is as sentient as Annie seems to be? Is it right to control someone who is as sentient as Annie seems to me? I don't think it is.

I don't think so at all. I think as soon as she's thinking for herself, I don't know what kind of existence is available to her. But to have her completely controlled by somebody else who can turn her off or turn her on at a whim, I think that's really unhealthy and unfair. I think that's really unfair.

Planned Parenthood
It's hard to imagine a world where we leave future generations with fewer rights and freedoms. The Supreme Court has stolen the constitutional right to control our bodies. Now politicians in nearly every state have introduced bills that would block people from getting the essential sexual and reproductive care they need, including abortion. Planned Parenthood believes everyone deserves access to care. It's a human right.

We won't give up and we won't back down. Help ensure the next generation can decide their own futures. Donate to Planned Parenthood. Visit plannedparenthood.org Future there's a lot of. Sex in this book, which I was going to give it to one of my kids, and I was like, do I want to give this book to one of my kids?

David Plotz
There's a lot of sex in it. There's a lot of robot sex. Why did you have so much sex. In the book now? The sex is actually a really integral part of the relationship between them.

Sierra Greer
I didn't think it would be right to just close the door so that we couldn't see it when things are going on. Sex is, it's this really intimate, important part of what happens between them. And a lot of their power dynamics actually are shown in the sex. So sometimes it seems to be more consensual. Sometimes she's servicing him in a way that is supposed to distract him from things or to prove her subservience or prove that he has control.

And yet, on the other hand, he desires her very, very much. So in a way, she has power over him because she knows how much he desires her. So it's actually really complex. So the sex has to actually, it really has to be there. And I don't feel that the novel goes on graphically forever with the sex.

It's not, it doesn't agree. I don't think it falls into pornography, and yet I don't just pretend it's not there either. I really do go for it. Yeah, no, and it's clear. And especially when other, there's one other male character who interacts vividly with Annie, it's clear how much sex, when people see her and encounter her and think of her as, oh, she's a cuddle bunny, it gets them all.

David Plotz
Everyone's excited about this idea. And you want to represent that. Yeah. So do you believe in the world that you created? Do you think that we are going to have creatures like Annie one day?

Sierra Greer
Not really soon, but I don't think we need to have creatures like Annie to encounter the problems that Annie poses, because I think emotionally we are going to have characters or people that we can create or, I don't even know how to say it, we're going to have AI companions that will be really important to us. And on the flip side, we already have humans now who are treated like they are objects. So the same issues that show up in the novel between a robot and human are happening now between human and human. So I think the novel really is an allegory for what's happening now. So we don't have to look to the future and the technology.

We can look to how this is a mirror for what's happening between people now. Yes. I mean, it's certainly when you think about, you read stories about how people treat domestic servants or how people treat people who have been sex trafficked, there is this sickness and sadness in that which certainly, yeah, I'm too stupid to have thought about it as an allegory for that. I was only thinking about the future, not the present. Ah, this is interesting.

I'm not sure what this. What this says about you. Hmm. It's curious. Right.

I've had really different reactions to this novel. If I can just kind of jump in here. I'm not completely surprised that that didn't occur to you. When my editor was talking to me about the potential she saw for this novel, she said we really needed to cast the net in a lot of different directions to people that would not necessarily always overlap. So the book has been reviewed in things you wouldn't always think about together.

It's been in Scientific American, and it's been in glamour, and it's been in the New York Times, so, and it's been in newsletters for tech people out in San Francisco. So there are a lot of ways that people, audiences don't necessarily overlap that, and yet they can come to this novel and sort of bring themselves to it. I've had really strongly emotional letters from women who have been in relationships that were abusive, and they're pretty grateful that I'm helping them feel seen. I guess that's the way to put it. And men, too, I've written, I've heard from men, too, who have been in coercive relationships, and they just are grateful that someone is bringing these to light.

So that's going on. And at the same time, I know that there are some people who really would welcome the idea of having women, or versions of women that are very simplified and have a very strict set of rules that they're supposed to exist within, because that would make the men feel more comfortable around them. So there are really a lot of ways for people to talk about this novel. I was struck just before we got on, I was just googling the book just to see, oh, is there something I missed about it? And I was struck at how the word abusive shows up again and again in the sort of the reviews by.

David Plotz
By readers that there are people who either saying, oh, you should be aware that this portrays of an abusive relationship. If that's something that's difficult for you to read about, you should be careful reading this. And then other people saying how well this portrays an abusive relationship, you should read that because it does it. But as I said, because I'm, I guess, just interested in speculative fiction with only thinking about the future and not really worrying about that part of it. But now I'm ashamed.

So it goes.

So who are you reading that gabfest listeners should also be reading right now? I tend to read novels, and I really liked how high we go in the dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, which is another speculative story or novel that works where each chapter almost serves as its own short story, and yet they build together and they, they go across a very broad timeline. So it's just sort of, I don't know, just sort of a dazzling book. I really liked that. There's another novel by Frances Cha called if I had your face, and it's set in Korea, and there are five different women characters that are part of an industry there where they have to have, they have to have facial cosmetic surgery in order to appear beautiful for their jobs.

Sierra Greer
And it just was sort of, it seemed like the future to me. And then I started reading more about it and realizing, actually, a lot of this surgery is happening now. So that novel really startled me. Those are two of my favorites lately. And what are you working on now?

David Plotz
Is the world of, is Annie's world going to continue? Are you going to explore what it likes to be? It is to be a handy or some other perspective on that world, or have you moved on to something else? You know, I am really, really drawn back into this world with Annie. But to be honest, I've started going off with it in several different directions, and none of them yet has been the right one to continue all the way into the length of a novel.

Sierra Greer
It's just really intriguing to imagine what would happen to Annie herself directly afterward. So I've started that novel in about three different directions, and I've tried combining versions of that. They're just not, they just don't work right now. You know what it is? There's so much drive in Annie Bot, and it's sort of her origin story.

So for me, it was really, really powerful. I've tried to jump ahead with Doug ahead five years to see where he is. I've tried to follow some of the parallel characters that they're, that show up briefly in the novel or who are implied by the novel. So I'm definitely playing around with the world that I haven't found the right tack. And I think it's it's okay to just I'm just going to take my time with this and not rush.

And if the right combination of ideas comes together, I'm going to follow them. And if it doesn't come together, I'm going to keep exploring other ideas, too. I do a lot of brainstorming. I write every day, and I consider that a win, even if it doesn't add up to something that could eventually be a novel.

David Plotz
Sierra Greer's novel is so good. It is anybody. It's fun. It's dark, it's light. It really will make you think.

As I said, I like tore through it. Tore, tore, tore through it. I stayed up way later than I normally would just because I needed to keep going. And it's such a good look. Sierra, thank you for joining us on Gabfest reads.

Sierra Greer
Oh, my pleasure. Thank you very much. That's it for this month's edition of Gabfests reads. Our producer, Shayna Roth. Ben Richmond is senior director of operations for Slate podcast.

David Plotz
Alicia Montgomery is vice president of audio for Slate. We'll be back next month with another edition of Gabfest reads. Until then, John and Emily and I will be back with you on Thursday with a new episode of the Slate political Gabfest.