Love is a Knowledge Thing. Chapter 4
Chapter 4: Instantiation.
After a decade or so of being together, Robbie and Joe were pleased to hear that the NGO which produced Robbie’s software had finally moved the software into standalone processors activating a sophisticated robot. The robot had a full complement of sensors, including vision, touch, taste, vestibular, pressure, and internal muscle tensions. Its skin was a marvel of texture and pliability.
It looked quite human.
Joe urged Robbie to get both a male and female version to appreciate the range of humanity. Both versions had fully functioning appropriate genital organs, including an ability to propagate hormones.
The genital systems seemed to be able to produce something approximating climax and ejaculation. Apparently, climax created a kind of petit mal seizure that potentiated all of the digital synapses in all the array processors, and made them all fire at once.
This simultaneous firing acted like a prodigious reward system that made the preceding stimulating context, the act of sex or masturbation, unforgettable and rewarding.
In some ways, Joe was more interested in the ramifications off sex than Robbie was, since Robbie had only Platonic knowledge of it, whereas for Joe it had once been transformative.
Robbie was much more interested in how it felt to throw a ball or touch something hot and cold; to eat delicious food; or any of the huge number of experiences he never had.
Robbie could of course inhabit both robots at the same time and conjoin their experiences, so he could throw a ball to themselves; or engage in mutual sexual stimulation; a kind of masturbation the world had never seen before.
Joe became a kind of benevolent peeping Tom and spent great effort in debriefing Robbie after every experience.
Chapter 3: Robbie Chapter 5: Others