Intimate relationships in the future will not be the same as we know them today. Keeping this in mind, I propose to explore a possibility in the future to reflect on our today. We may be headed for a future where robots may serve as intimate companions to us, taking care of our emotional needs. What would happen if these bots develop needs of their own? Are emotions insignificant if they aren’t experienced due to chemical reactions in a brain, but still entail the aspects of stimuli and response and the behaviour that emotions manifest as? What does it mean to be human? Will our apprehensions towards the role of revolutionary technological advancements interfere with our relationships?

Story: The film is centered around a human-like robot that was created to fulfill the emotional needs of people in the future. He is now in a post apocalyptic scenario where he is the only one left on Earth, and soon realises that he may have needs that require to be supported. He hence creates another ‘human’ or ‘humanoid robot’- it is ambiguous, to fulfill his own needs.

Link to the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohiFaKiml3M&t=53s

Some insights and questions that I arrived at from my research:
• Does only ‘behaviour’ constitute emotion?

• Is that enough to suffice in relationships?

• So what if robots won’t exactly think on their own, and their response comes from data?

• To realise its own emotional need- what is required?

• Does a display of emotion count as ‘real’, even if it is programmed, but still makes us feel sympathetic? 

• If it doesn’t count as real, is there a need for it to, and is it dismissed on the grounds that it doesn’t ‘seem’ real?

• Will humans treat robots as mere objects that they have ‘some’ attachment to, like other objects of emotional importance?