人與性愛機械人的親密關係無與倫比？──從中西文化的人格主義評論

Is Human Intimate Relationship with Sex Robots Really Incomparable? Evaluation from the Perspective of Personalism in Western and Chinese Culture

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

千百年來，人類一直嘗試在有血有肉的愛侶或配偶中尋找親密關係。豈料，人工親密、虛擬親密或數碼親密（artificial intimacy）的時代已經驟然來到，如虛擬伴侶和人類與仿生性愛機器人之間的“人機性愛”。本文將會從人格主義（personalism）的角度評價人機性愛，而主要批評的對像是大衛．列維（David Levy）──他堅信人機性愛比人類的性愛更勝一籌。本文會首先介紹布伯（Martin Buber）有關真偽“我─爾關係”的觀點，然後用來指出人機性愛的種種問題。最後我們會初步探索，究竟在中國文化傳統中有沒有類似的人格主義思想，可幫助我們分析和評價人機親密關係呢？

For millennia, human beings have sought intimacy with flesh-and-blood lovers or spouses. However, the era of artificial, virtual, and digital intimacy, as manifested in virtual companions and sexual interaction between humans and android sex robots, has arrived with remarkable speed. This paper evaluates human–robot sex from the perspective of personalism. Its primary critique targets David Levy, who firmly believes that human–robot sex is superior to human–human sex. The paper uses Martin Buber’s framework regarding authentic versus pseudo ‘I–thou’ relationships to point out the problems inherent in human–robot sex. Finally, the paper conducts a preliminary exploration of whether traditional Chinese culture contains analogous personalist thought that can contribute to the analysis and evaluation of intimate human–machine relationships.