Reflections on the Emotional Side of Robotics: Valentine's Day Limited NFT Collection

The Robonomics team, together with the MerkleBot project, has prepared another interesting experience with the Boston Dynamics Spot: you can connect to a robot-dog living in a laboratory in San Francisco and create a unique digital work of art with it. The resulting NFT picture can be added to your collection or used instead of a regular postcard - original and eco-friendly! The opportunity to interact with Spot is available to everyone - for Robonomics this is an additional way to show love to the community<3

Can robots love and is it possible to love them?

This question should open up a discussion about the emotional aspects of integrating robotics into human life.

Robotics is a rapidly developing field of science that allows people to create machines that can safely exist in a complex human world, interact with its inhabitants (humans and other machines), perform some useful actions, usually aimed at improving the humans’ quality of life and in some way to simplify it.

It seems that there are only benefits from robotic progress, however, along with it, a number of ethical issues and problems associated with the use of robots in humans’ everyday life arise.

Spot and its lovestory

Continuing the conversation about the ethical and emotional issues of robots, Robonomics has created a new conceptual digital art collection that brings together two seemingly incompatible elements - Boston Dynamics' Spot robot-dog and Jeff Koons' balloon-dog.

At first glance, a robodog is a cold metal machine devoid of emotions, while the iconic balloon-dog, on the contrary, is a symbol of childish joy and playfulness. This contrast of symbols and images in this art object allows the Spot to be seen in a completely different light and encourages the viewer to think about the possibility of having a positive emotional connection with the robots.

This NFT collection is not just a tribute to art - it is something more, a kind of trigger that appeals to philosophical reasoning. The human world has never been so close to the world of machines, and technological progress continues to blur the border between these worlds. Whether it will be a peaceful rapprochement and coexistence or a collision at full speed is up to us. That is why it is important to consider the impact that machines will have on society and human emotions.

Movie for the evening and discussion over a glass

If you are interested in the ethical question raised by the love of modern dogs from the Robonomics NFT collection, then check out the movie Her (2013) and the old film Bicentennial Man (1999) – both ones are great for viewing on the evening of February 14th.

And, of course, let's discuss!

Can there be an emotional connection between humans and robots? How should humans approach ethical issues related to the implementation of robotics? What are your concerns?

Join the discussion on Discord!