Future Tense Fiction: Could a Robot Be Your Dog’s Best Friend?

Slate Technology

Slate

Society & Culture, Technology, History

4.6 • 636 Ratings

🗓️ 29 July 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this month’s episode of Future Tense Fiction, host Maddie Stone talks to Andrew Silverman about his short story “Furgen.” Tucker, the story’s canine protagonist, is the center of his owner Caro’s world. When Caro buys an A.I.-enabled dog trainer that promises to help both her and Tucker live their best lives, everything starts to fall into place—the A.I. takes care of Tucker when he’s sick, trains him to walk without a leash, and even helps Caro get a girlfriend. But as Tucker’s bond with the A.I. deepens, optimizing for their best lives starts to mean something much different than what Caro originally had in mind. After the story, Maddie asks Andrew about how his own experiences as a dog owner—and a pediatric neurologist—influenced the story. Plus, Maddie talks with canine behavioral scientist Clive Wynne, who wrote a response essay to Andrew’s story, about whether a dog could really fall in love with a robot. Guests: Andrew Silverman is a pediatric neurologist and the author of “Furgen.” Clive Wynne is a professor of psychology and director of the Canine Science Collaboratory at Arizona State University. He is also the author of Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You. Story read by Peggy O’Neal Podcast production by Tiara Darnell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Future Tense Fiction, a podcast featuring stories about how technology could change tomorrow.
0:07.4	I'm Maddie Stone.
0:09.7	Andrew Silverman did what many people did at the beginning of the pandemic.
0:13.9	He adopted a dog.
0:15.5	But the electronic device he bought to keep tabs on his puppy left him wondering.
0:20.2	In a world of increasingly sophisticated pet care technology, do our furry companions actually
0:25.5	need us to be happy?
0:27.5	At the end of the day, we still say we quote unquote own dogs.
0:30.4	We confine them to crates, to train them, we walk them around on leashes.
0:35.6	So depending on your perspective, I think dogs are totally entitled to higher levels of freedom, to higher levels of happiness.
0:42.0	On today's episode, we're bringing you a reading of Andrew Silverman's Virgin.
0:46.6	Then, Andrew and Canine Behavioral Scientist Clive Wynn join us to talk about how tech is changing our relationships with our pets,
0:54.0	and maybe even
0:55.0	making us obsolete. That's all coming up on future tense fiction. Stay with us.
1:05.5	This episode is brought to you by Indeed, struggling to get your job posts seen on other job sites.
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1:23.6	Speed up your hiring today with a £100 sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash SPANUK. Terms and conditions apply.
1:36.9	This is FutureTense Fiction. I'm Maddie Stone. I'm a freelance journalist and the editor of the Science of Fiction, a newsletter about how science and pop culture intersect.
1:47.8	Every month, Slate's Future Tense Partnership with New America and Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination publishes a short story that explores how science and technology will shape our future.
2:00.5	Now, we're bringing some of those
	...

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