The New Breed: What Our History with Animals Reveals about Our Future with Robots [Paperback]

For readers ofThe Second Machine AgeorThe Soul of an Octopus, a bold, exciting exploration of how building diverse kinds of relationships with robotsinspired by how we interact with animalscould be the key to making our future with robot technology work

There has been a lot of ink devoted to discussions of how robots will replace us and take our jobs. But MIT Media Lab researcher and technology policy expert Kate Darling argues just the opposite, suggesting that treating robots with a bit of humanity, more like the way we treat animals, will actually serve us better. From a social, legal, and ethical perspective, she shows that our current ways of thinking dont leave room for the robot technology that is soon to become part of our everyday routines. Robots are likely to supplementrather than replaceour own skills and relationships. So if we consider our history of incorporating animals into our work, transportation, military, and even families, we actually have a solid basis for how to contend with this future.

A deeply original analysis of our technological future and the ethical dilemmas that await us,The New Breedexplains how the treatment of machines can reveal a new understanding of our own history, our own systems, and how we relatenot just to nonhumans, but also to one another.

Dr. Kate Darlingis a leading expert in robot ethics and policy. Shes a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab, a former fellow at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, and the Yale Information Society Project. Darlings work has been featured by theNew Yorker,theGuardian, PBS, theBoston Globe,Wired,Slate, NPR, and more.

ANew ScientistBest Book of 2021

Well-researched, well-developed, and well-written, Darlings innovative proposalto use our history of human-animal interactions as a blueprint for the l3%