ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the dreams and expectations surrounding the figure of the robot, basing them in an account of how they reflect the evolution of the body-machine relationship in the Industrial Age. The robot brought with it a potential to carry body, machine analogies into more disturbing terrain. Medical and scientific techniques of investigating the body moved on from those already seen in earlier anatomy, both refining the mechanistic account and seeking to improve upon it using both new investigative machines. The new machines and mechanical processes of the time provided new mechanistic models that could inform understandings of what bodies were and how they functioned. The chapter argues that Fortunati et al are failing to appreciate an important dimension of attempts to create androids. The fictitious Thomas Edison of the story justifies his creation of a female android on the grounds that the living seductress is already an artificial construction.
