Within the fields of Human-Computer Interaction and Human-Robot Interaction, the past few years have witnessed a strong upsurge of interest in the more personal aspects of human relationships with these artificial partners. This upsurge has not only been apparent amongst the general public, as evidenced by an increase in coverage in the print media, TV documentaries and feature films, but also within the academic community.

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This is the seventh edition in our congress series and the third online congress for LSR.

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The earliest academic papers on the subject were presented at the 2006 E.C. Euron Roboethics Atelier, organized by the School of Robotics in Genoa, followed a year later by the first book – “Love and Sex with Robots” – published by Harper Collins in New York. Since that initial flurry of academic activity in this field the subject has grown significantly in breadth and worldwide interest.

 

Three conferences on Human-Robot Personal Relationships were held in the Netherlands during the period 2008-2010, in each case the proceedings were published by respected academic publishers, including Springer-Verlag. After a gap until 2014 the conferences were renamed as the “International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots”, which have previously taken place at the University of Madeira in 2014; in London in 2016 and 2017; and in Brussels in 2019. Additionally, the Springer-Verlag “International Journal of Social Robotics”, had, by 2016, published articles mentioning the subject, and an open access journal called “Lovotics” was launched in 2012, devoted entirely to the subject. In 2020, the conference successfully transitioned online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots provides an excellent opportunity for academics and industry professionals to present and discuss their innovative work and ideas in an academic symposium.