Soft Core Robot Porn

So as I described this book, as I read it, to my friends, they questioned the validity as science fiction of what they surmised to be soft core robot porn. Actually, I suppose the subject was handled pretty well, that is, the humanizing of robots and artificial intelligence. By the end, I was entirely surprised that she didn't just remake Yod. If she had really loved him, remaking him with free will would have been appropriate.

One of the biggest pleasures I got from this novel was reading the story of the golem again. I visited Prague once and I'm going back next semester and the Jewish quarter was selling thousands of tiny dolls that looked vaguely like the Hulk, only brown. If that was how the golem had looked, I'd bee worried, but Piercy's vision of Joseph as just a big guy was interesting. The whole legend is probably based in something of that sort in reality, just a really big guy coming out of nowhere and helping people out, which is almost as romantic.

Anyways, what is human? This is a hard quesstion for me, so I'll assume human means sentient and "ramen" if you know the reference, not Asian noodles. However, any sufficiently designed computer system will be able to say "I'm human" or "I'm a person" and maybe convince you. Deciding where the line could be drawn on that one is the first step, and I'm not sure a difference between intelligent programming and sentience could ever be located, or if it exists.