I confess that when I opened up Turned On: Science, Sex, and Robots by Kate Devlin, I wasn’t expecting a tour of classical literature: stories about Laodamia, who had “commissioned a bronze likeness of her [dead] husband — an artificial lover that she took to her bed.” Or the Spartan king Nabis, who had a “lifelike robot designed and dressed up to look like his dead wife, Apega.” But as Devlin cautions us, “This is not a book that’s just about sex. Or robots . . . . It’s about intimacy and technology . . . history and archaeology, love and biology.” Though that’s not to say sex and robots don’t appear. They do.

But before we get to the sex robot “Harmony” and an exploration of teledildonics (use your root words people), Devlin works her way through that classical literature as well as various historical artifacts, such as ancient phalluses that may have had a “dedicated purpose” beyond ritual, or the Greek olisbokollix a “hard-baked breadstick . . . literally a bread dildo.” From there it’s a jump forward to the first electromechanical vibrator in the late 1800s and then a tour of its development into the cornucopia of devices now available. Sex tech, Devlin informs us, is a 30-billion-dollar industry (not including on-line porn) that includes both hardware and software all while it moves into new technology such as virtual reality.

From there Devlin dips into today’s sex dolls (mostly female forms she notes, though she’ll delve into that more fully later), and then she cycles once more back to ancient times, detailing Greek and Chinese automata. While these ancient examples were rough and primitive, by the seventeenth century “automata were becoming more sophisticated and more impressive,” including a full-size flute player that could play twelve songs. Some decades later the Mechanical Turk seemed to put all prior examples to shame, although the mechanical chess player turned out to be a complete hoax (though it took, Devlin informs us, nearly a hundred years for the full extent of how it worked to become public). The automata were the pre-cursors to the robots, which is Devlin’s next topic, starting with Capek’s R.U.R and bringing us up to modern times, with a discussion not just of the mechanics but also the ethics of robots (here she brings in Asimov’s famed Three Laws), before then delving into machine learning and AI.

We’re getting nearer to the book’s subtitle, with a foray into companion robots for the elderly and the lonely, discussion of the “uncanny valley,” and anthropomorphism. And then, about halfway through the book, Devlin takes a tour of a RealDoll factory, where she meets the aforementioned Harmony: “a RealDoll body with a face that speaks and moves . . . [and] breasts that are unfeasibly balloon-like above a narrow waist.” The tour leads to some surprises for Devlin. For instance, she “came here expecting to be riled by the hyper-sexualized, pornified shapes of the artificial women, and yet . . . all I see is artistry and expertise. I’m conflicted.” And in a superb detail that is hard to imagine in any other work, she describes looking to her side to see “production manager Mike, busy at work shaping the vulva and vagina . . .Next to him is a tray of eye-wateringly large penises in various states of completion . . . I stop to take pictures. I have the best holiday snaps.” That wry sense of humor runs throughout the book making it all the more charming and engaging. After a few more stops with other inventors/sex “robots” (in quotes because, as Devlin had warned us at the start, there really aren’t any such fully working inventions yet), she moves into what is a fascinating discussion, more philosophical than technical, of love and intimacy between humans and the inanimate. Some of the intriguing questions she brings up are the effect/ethics/possible benefits and pitfalls of sex robots on pedophiles, sex trafficking, prostitution, rape, human relationships, body image, and more. As we’ve just entered into this phase (really, the “pre-phase”), Devlin offers more questions than answers, which might be frustrating to some readers but made perfect sense to me. She leaves the reader to think, which is what good non-fiction should aim at. Toward the end, she muses on what she sees as the best type of sex robot—which is surprisingly non-humanoid: “Why not pick the features that could bring the greatest pleasure? A velvet or silk body, sensors and mixed genitalia, tentacles instead of arms? . . . increasingly embodied forms providing robotic, multi-sensory experiences . . . reduc[ing] some of the more compelling fears.”

The first half of Turned On is filled with fascinating details of the development of cultural views and mechanics. The book does bog down a little in the middle, but not for long, and the second half shifts fear in welcome manner from informative tour to boundary-pushing questions of ethics, philosophy, and human intimacy. And while the prose is mostly just effective, the voice is engaging and charmingly wry. Recommended.

Turned On is a book about Science, Sex and Robots. Yes, Sex Robots. This book piqued my interest when it mentioned Robots, and maybe a little because it mentioned Sex as well. It was a lot more indepth, technical and interesting than I was expecting. Like, I didn't realize that Corn Flakes were created to be a part of a bland diet to try and reduce masturbation urges. Or that most sex dolls are made in the image of women and while there are some men ones, they are much harder to come by. And that sex toys are getting smarter and smarter and some even use AI to become who the user wants them to become. But there is also a risk with AI because some are programmed to reach their goal - and HOW they go about it is really cared about which can be dangerous. I'm also particularly intrigued by the "incel" community and there was some information on that in here as well and if a solution for their problem could be a sex robot?

And since I am now in grad school for Cyber Security, I couldn't ignore the part where some of the sex toys were keeping data on the user - and it wasn't stored anonymously so when it was ultimately hacked and obtained by someone who wasn't supposed to have it, they had all sorts of interesting and NON ANONYMOUS data from the sex toys. Yikes!! I didn't even think about that before then but I think that is the sort of "personal" data that users would really want to be kept secure and anonymous and encrypted!

I received a free e-copy of this book in order to write this review, I was not otherwise compensated. This book was released December 18 2018 by Bloomsbury USA.

Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots is literally about all three of those things but not necessarily all at one time.

The book begins with a look back at early sex toys. The most hard to forget is the sailor’s lady made of leather and fabric and shared around the ship, ahead of the Fleshlight by hundreds of years. It continues by covering automata, mechanical robots programmed to appear spontaneous. Eventually, it arrives at sex dolls, some of which can do robot appearing tricks but are closer to automata. The author explains the difficulty in even defining what a sex robot is. Does it have to appear human? Have at least some artificial intelligence?

I like books about new technology, which is why I decided to read this book. However, I learned more about the current status of sex robots on a one-hour premium cable after hours show. As the author states in the epilogue, it is difficult or impossible to write about a technology that is changing so quickly.

However, that is not to say this book doesn’t have some valuable information and insights. Who knew there are many sex doll brothels around the world? Sometime in 2018, the first “sex robot” brothel will open in Moscow. There are many ethical issues with the idea of sex robots. Should child-sized ones be banned? The UK has already banned childlike sex dolls. What would be the impact on women? Would it encourage objectification, or worse, rape? Would robot use in porn and prostitution result in less sex trafficking and exploitation?

Turned On: Science, Sex and Robots is very explicit and so is not recommended to sensitive readers. However, it is thought-provoking. 3.5 stars rounded up to 4 stars!

Thanks to Bloomsbury Sigma and NetGalley for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

Just like there’s a site for everything on the web, there’s a doctoral dissertation for everything in the libraries of academia, or at least in the sometimes-fertile imagination of grad students. Here’s the proof, a book about sex robots, though the author would kill me if she saw me writing it so simply.
Right away in the intro there’s humor and self-awareness, which is a good harbinger. Actually, the title starts that with a pretty good pun. From there it delves into the ancient history of dildos and vibrators. Not sure what this has to do with the topic, but it’s fun, at least for a while.
As much as I’m enjoying the writing, I’m a third of the way through and the author seems to have forgotten what the book is supposed to be about in her fervor to provide historical perspective.
Getting through this becomes so tough I long for the humorous interludes, my fave being her running a conference amidst accusations of “bouncing.” Every once in a while she’ll sneak in a line like “I watch sex doll porn so you won’t have to,” and it reminds me why I keep reading till the end.
Despite the humor and conversational style, it really is more like a scientific report than anything else. I learned a lot of things, but not so many on the topic. But the important takeaway is that, even if it felt long at times, I enjoyed reading it.
3.5 pushed up to 4/5

Sex robots!

The subject made me download Kate Devlin’s new book. It’s drawn hundreds of thousands of readers to Devlin’s previous writings on the subject, despite the fact that — as we learn about halfway through the book — sex robots aren’t really a thing yet.

At least, not in the sense of the cinematic fantasies that populate movies and TV shows from "Metropolis" to "Austin Powers" to "Ex Machina" to "Westworld." We’re not even quite there with the artificial intelligences that seduce men in "Electric Dreams," "Her," and "Blade Runner 2049." "Turned On," then, is both a guide to the state of the art and a primer on the questions we ought to be asking about where this trend is heading.

It certainly is a trend, and one that’s taking on increasingly tangible form. As Devlin details, multiple companies around the world are competing to advance the art of the sex doll, combining animatronics with the kind of rudimentary A.I. found in your countertop smart speaker or dashboard voice assistant.

Quickly as the state of the art is advancing, Devlin doesn’t think we’re remotely close to the kind of gynoid who could actually be confused with a real woman — or android who could be confused with a real man, and now you’ve learned the first lesson of Sex Robots 101. It’s also one of the most important, thinks Devlin: just because sex dolls to date have been mostly female-shaped for male customers doesn’t mean they will, or should, continue to be.

Although Devlin muses on the philosophical implications of a far-distant future where artificial intelligence, embodied in sex robots among other appliances, will have advanced to functional sentience, she’s more concerned in the here and now. You can’t buy a fembot, but you can buy a vibrator that connects to your smartphone and features a camera at the end (“yes,” clarifies Devlin, “THAT end”). What if it was hacked? No, really.

Smart sex toys, writes Devlin, are already here, and they promise to be a much bigger part of our lives in coming years. Actual humanoid robots will continue to advance, but you’re not likely to find one under the Christmas tree (alluring as that image is) within your lifetime. An as-yet-undreamed-of device to stimulate you in creative new ways? Devin herself just presided over Sex Tech Hack II: The Second Coming, and she’s hoping someone will soon prototype a “sex duvet made from soft and strokeable fabric that vocally rumbles as it’s touched.”

Sorry, did you come here for sex robots? Devlin’s book is an informative and readable primer on the subject, although it could benefit from a more focused presentation: "Turned On" has a lot of, so to speak, intellectual foreplay regarding the foundations of artificial intelligence, the philosophy of consciousness, and sex with statues in ancient history.

Of course, there is a lesson in patience here. Sex robots themselves, Devlin notes, don’t just want to get straight to the good part. Why bother with silicone flesh if you don’t want to cuddle a little bit?

This was a very interesting, intriguing, entertaining and easy to read book.

Kate Devlin does an amazing job by engaging you from the very beginning and taking you on a extremely entertaining journey that has you turning pages and not wanting to stop.

I absolutely loved the combination of history, philosophy, science, ethics, technology and sex. I was surprised as to how easy it all flowed and how it is written for all audiences with all different backgrounds. Adult audience.

I think the best thing though, was how much I learned and how thought-provoking many of the passages were. This is a book I will definitely recommend to everyone I know. Can't wait to read more form this author in the future.

I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book delivered indeed!
Even though I don't usually go for non fiction novels this book mesmerized me.
It combines two completely opposite things, sex and science and takes us into this journey from the Ancient times, to now and to the future.
It also met my expectations in the writing style.
Overall, an interesting, well-written, near-ish-future novel with some compelling ideas.

Robots. Yes. How do I love robots? Let’s count the ways. Well, for the sake of brevity, maybe not, but let’s just say I really, really love robots…although not in the way some of the denizens of this book do. So while I’d love a robot best friend, a robot romantic and/or sexual partner isn’t something that spins my dreams around. In fact once I watched a program about men (and it’s nearly always men) who were trying to find (ok, buy) their perfect robotic mate and they were exactly the sad sack can’t make it with a real woman stereotypes you’d think they’d be. But in whatever way you want to utilize them, let’s face it, robots are the future. They are already all around us (Hi, Alexa) and are getting smarter every day, but they still haven’t nearly reached that level of autonomy and sentience that makes us think of singularity event, terminators and apocalypses. Frankly…I say bring it on. And not just because I’ve just listened to Robots of Gotham on audio, the book where robots did take over. But seriously in this day and age it might be an improvement. The thought of being governed by an artificial intelligence seems infinitely preferable to the inverse of that. But anyway…this book is all about robots and sex, often together, sometimes separately. It gives a comprehensive historical overview of how technology got to where it is now, ponders what’s next, considers sexuality as it evolved over time to be a much more complex multilayered thing than past models, but mainly it contemplates the ethics of robot/person involvements. After all, there are situations and jobs you’d be glad to turn over to robots right now, very practical things like caretaking, assembly, etc. But however lonely the world gets, however much time is spent playing games, interacting via social media or in virtual reality…or not interacting at all and shutting the world out Japanese style…there’s still a significant taboo about having a robot mate. Possibly because technology is as of yet far from perfect, still talking a semiautonomous preprogrammed cranium upon a blow up doll body more often than not. Possibly because such a union would usher in a brave new world not everyone’s quite ready to contemplate yet. For me robots…whether it’s to eradicate loneliness, provide essential assistance or even just to hang out…bring it on. Can’t be nearly as disappointing as the flesh bags (or whatever derogatory moniker the robots use to discuss us) and probably definitely smarter than most. But it was still very interesting to read about all the psychological, ethical and social implications of such an evolution. And the book was very entertaining, the author’s funny, erudite, very feminist, opinionated and clever…so that should give you an idea of what sort of perspective you’re getting here. Very enjoyable read, not so much educating (knew a lot of it already and also really wish there were photos) as enlightening and tons of food for thought. Science, sex and robots…how can you not love that combination. And now back to dreaming of technology finally matching up to my imagination. Thanks Netgalley.