A thirteen-year-old girl wakes up in a future where human emotions are extinct and people rely on personal-assistant robots to navigate daily life.Imagine a future in which many human emotions are extinct, and "emotional masseuses" try to help people recover those lost sensations. Individuals rely on personal-assistant robots to navigate daily life. Students are taught not to think but to employ search programs. Companies protect their intellectual property by erasing the memory of their employees. And then imagine what it would feel like to be a sweet, smart thirteen-year-old girl from the twenty-first century who wakes from a cryogenically induced sleep into this strange world. This is the compelling story told by Carme Torras in this prize-winning science fiction novel. We meet Celia, brought back to life when a cure is found for her formerly terminal disease, and Lu, Celia's adoptive mother, protective but mystified by her new daughter. There is Leo, a bioengineer, who is developing a "creativity prosthesis" to augment humans' atrophied capacities, and the eccentric robotics mogul Dr. Craft. And there is Silvana, an emotional masseuse who reads old books to research the power of emotion. Silvana sees Celia as a living, breathing example of the emotions and feelings that are now out of reach for most people. Torras, a prominent roboticist, weaves provocative ethical issues into her story. What kind of robots do we want when robot companions become as common as personal computers are now? Is it the responsibility of researchers to design robots that make the human mind evolve in a certain way? An appendix provides readers with a list of ethics questions raised by the book.
Author
Carme Torras (www.iri.upc.edu/people/torras) is a robotics researcher and novelist. She studied mathematics at the University of Barcelona and computer science at the University of Massachusetts, and she currently heads the Perception and Manipulation group at the Robotics Institute (CSIC-UPC) in Barcelona. A member of Academia Europaea and of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona, she writes scientific works on robotics and artificial intelligence in English and fiction in Catalan, and some of her novels and short stories have been translated into English, Spanish and Italian. Her novels Pedres de toc and Miracles perversos won the Primera Columna award and the Ferran Canyameres award to the best thriller, respectively. Her most celebrated novel, La mutació sentimental, won the Manuel de Pedrolo award and the Ictineu award to the best Catalan science-fiction novel published in 2008. This novel was translated into Spanish (2012) and has appeared in English with the title The Vestigial Heart published by MIT Press in April 2018. A member of the Catalan Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy, Carme is convinced that science fiction may play an important role in generating debate and public opinion on the social implications of our increasing interaction with robots and AI apps. Her latest novel, Enxarxats (Males Herbes, 2017), is a disturbing story about the possibilities of the Internet and the responsibilities and consequences of our constant activity within the network; and The Vestigial Heart includes an appendix with a list of ethics questions raised by the book, as well as online materials to foster debate or teach a course on the ethics of social robotics. Versió en català ————— Carme Torras (www.iri.upc.edu/people/torras) és llicenciada en matemàtiques, doctora en informàtica, i actualment és professora d'investigació a l'Institut de Robòtica del CSIC a la UPC. La seva primera novel·la, Pedres de toc, va guanyar el premi Primera Columna. La mutació sentimental va guanyar el X Premi Manuel de Pedrolo el 2007 i la seva tercera novel·la, Miracles perversos, el Premi Ferran Canyameres de Novel·la el 2011. Membre de la Societat Catalana de Ciència Ficció i Fantasia, Carme està convençuda que la ciència ficció pot tenir un paper important a l'hora de generar debat i opinió pública sobre les implicacions socials de la nostra creixent interacció amb robots i aplicacions d'Intel·ligència Artificial. La seva última novel·la, Enxarxats (Males Herbes, 2017), és una història inquietant sobre les possibilitats d'Internet i les responsabilitats i conseqüències de la nostra constant activitat a la xarxa. La traducció a l'anglès de La mutació sentimental, publicada per MIT Press amb el títol The Vestigial Heart, inclou un apèndix amb una llista de qüestions ètiques plantejades pel llibre, així com materials en línia per fomentar el debat o impartir un curs sobre l'ètica de la robòtica social i la Intel·ligència artificial.
