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The New Breed Summary & Review: What Animals Teach Us About Living with Robots
Kate Darling’s The New Breed argues our long history with animals — not sci-fi — is the best guide to living well…
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Kate Darling
"MIT Media Lab researcher redefining how we think about robots"
Kate Darling is a researcher at the MIT Media Lab, where she studies human-robot interaction, robot ethics, and the psychology of how people relate to social robots. Trained in law and economics, she brings a policy-minded, empirically grounded lens to questions usually left to science fiction. Her early experiments with Pleo, a robotic baby dinosaur, revealed how quickly people form emotional attachments to machines that move with apparent purpose — research that became the foundation for her work on robot ethics and law. Darling advises policymakers and companies on robot regulation and is a frequent voice in mainstream coverage of AI and robotics. Her book, The New Breed (2021), argues that humanity’s long history with animals — not science fiction — is the best guide to living well with robots.
1 book·Robot Ethics & Human-Robot Interaction
Books by Kate Darling
Our in-depth summaries and reviews of his work
Key Ideas & Recurring Themes
Ask “what’s its role,” not “is it conscious”
The most useful question about any robot isn’t whether it’s human-like — it’s what job it does and how we build a healthy partnership with it.
Animals are our best guide to robots
Ten thousand years of working with animals gives us a tested playbook for trust, roles, and boundaries with non-human agents — far more useful than science fiction.
Anthropomorphism isn’t a flaw
Naming your Roomba or feeling for a struggling robot is a normal, ancient part of how humans relate to agents that move with apparent purpose.
Notable Quotes
"We’re not going to replace humans — we’re going to replace tasks."— On robots and the future of work
"Robots don’t need to be human-like to be useful to us — just like animals never did."— The New Breed
"The tendency to anthropomorphize isn’t a bug in our thinking — it’s how humans have always related to non-human agents."— The New Breed
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Book Author Kate Darling
The New Breed Summary & Review: What Animals Teach Us About Living with Robots
Kate Darling’s The New Breed argues our long history with animals — not sci-fi — is the best guide to living well with robots. Key takeaways, deep-dive summary, and a 7-day plan.