As technologically simulated relationships become ever more realistic and superficially convincing, we must be aware of the risk that the simulacrum will exert a seductive appeal to our hearts.

Should we teach our children to be polite to Alexa, to say please and thank you, to respect its ‘virtual’ feelings? Or is it of no significance if children abuse, tease and bully a simulated slave-person?

Will the promotion of ‘relationships’ with machines contribute to societal wellbeing and human flourishing, or provide new opportunities for manipulation and deception of the vulnerable?

David Glass, Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Ulster University (Northern Ireland) analyses whether a computer can have emotions or a conscious experience.

Christians appear to be able to offer a framework for insisting on the value and dignity of the human being in a mechanising world.

Intelligence is an extremely complex, contended subject, and there is plenty we still don’t know about animal intelligence, let alone human intelligence.

The creation of human-robots can easily become an attempt not only to meet practical needs, but emotional needs too.

Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski, founds Way of the Future, which aims “to create a deity based on artificial intelligence for the betterment of society”.