ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book first explores the origin of the robot as a cultural outcome of the cultural milieu of the 1920s. It then traces the robot over from its fictional and political imaginings and bring it into the fold of artificial intelligence (AI), a technological field focused on simulating human intelligence in machines. The book also explores the philosophy around social robots and social machines. It further discusses the themes of the social and asocial by exploring the kinds of gendered persons that involves in making robots and Image result for AI systems. The book then explores how the robot creation represents a figure of human suffering and breakdown, and show how robotic scientists used their machines as an unconscious dialogue sounding board for their own existential anxieties and difficulties. Finally, it considers the role of fantasy and the Real in the making of robots.
