Hot Docs 2008

In the near future, the elderly will outnumber children for the first time in our human history. There will be a gap in the social fabric, resulting in loneliness and depression from lack of contact and companionship. To patch this gap, engineers like Professor Ishiguro are developing therapeutic companion robots, near identical copies of humans designed to keep us company at home or in nursing homes. The film leads up to a revealing moment when the professor's android copy is introduced to his wife and daughter for the first time. Will the robot possess sonzai-kan, a human presence? Or will it remain uncanny and strange? Will his family emotionally bond to the robot? Will they eventually love him? Mechanical Love explores the intimate and complex relationships between therapeutic robots and humans, raising the question: Can robots offer a substitute for human affection?
-Sarah Whitehouse