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UnDisciplined: Robots, AI and the future of human connection

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Humans crave connection. It’s been hard-wired into us from hundreds of thousands of years of socialness being an advantage for survival, and for the most part that connection we crave is with other humans. But there is precedent for humans connecting with other living things — getting attention, love, and companionship from dogs and cats and a few other animals that have been domesticated to provide partnership. Now, there’s a new option for meeting this need — social robots — who may end up being even better at fulfilling the human desire for connection. Our Guest is award-winning science writer Eve Harold. She believes this concept is not all that strange, but its imperative that we must hold on to our humanity.

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Matthew LaPlante has reported on ritual infanticide in Northern Africa, insurgent warfare in the Middle East, the legacy of genocide in Southeast Asia, and gang violence in Central America. But a few years back, something occurred to him: Maybe the news doesn't have to be so brutally depressing all the time. These days, he balances his continuing work on more heartbreaking subjects with his work on UnDisciplined — Utah Public Radio's weekly program on science and discovery.