The Politics of Love
I-you attachment
The Politics of Love is a new project by Professor Kathleen Richardson, anthropologist and ethicist of robots and AI.
In 2015 she launched the Campaign Against Sex Robots to warn against the dangers of pretending representational technologies of the human: so-called sex, love, friend, companions or family robots and AI are capable of substituting human relationships.
This project is about creating a new kind of politics that is based on non-violent and mutual relationships between human beings: I-you attachment. This is the only way of relating that can produce the politics of love.
I-you attachment is both a lived experience and a political-ethical programme of action.
Relational technologies (robots and AI), porn, prostitution, violence, child abuse, surrogacy, animal abuse, and disregard of nature are rooted in political-ethical philosophies and practices that regard people as “animate tools/robots” – elaborate forms of property.
I-you attachment is rooted in philosophies that prioritise vulnerability and non-violent relationships and speak out against the commodification of humans, animals and the natural environment.
The global shift to robots and AI is about collapsing distinctions between people and property.
The politics of love is the outcome of cultivating relationships rooted in I-you attachment and towards the abolition of property relations.
The Politics of Love Manifesto
Campaign to abolish those industries that are rooted in property relations: pornography, prostitution, child abuse, non-human animal abuse (go vegan), militarism and environmental destruction.
Reject representational technologies of the human as substitutes for attachments. They are nothing but distorted, partial and fragmentary abuse mimics – reinforcing the politics of dissociation.
Defend the right to offer different political arguments and take actions against political censorship and speech. Protect our freedoms to debate, dialogue, discuss and present alternative political viewpoints.
The revolution will not be televised. Turn off your screens – your television and social media – and spend less time interacting with screens and more time engaged in embodied interactions with your I–you attachments.
The family you created is your first priority. Build good friendships and community. I–you attachment is always becoming.
Remember people can change. Give people the tools to make better life choices. Attachment trauma produces traumatized adults. Love, consciousness and connection can help to heal attachment wounds.
Love is not a formula but an engaged process of dialogue, give and take, responsiveness to others and rejection of violence.
Remember, you are not a robot, machine, computer or cyborg. And never will be.