John R. Shook & Liz Stillwaggon Swan 
Transformers and Philosophy 
More than Meets the Mind

Transformers began with toys and a cartoon series in 1984 and has since grown to include comic books, movies, and video games its science fiction story has reached an audience with a wide range second only to that of Star Wars. Here, in Transformers and Philosophy, a dream team of philosophers pursues the fascinating questions posed by humankind’s encounter with an artificially intelligent mechanical civilization: Is genuine artificial intelligence possible? Would a robotic civilization come with its own morality and artistic life, and would it find a need for romantic love? Should we be more careful about developing robots that may eventually develop ideas of their own? Transformers and Philosophy puts Transformers under a microscope and exposes its philosophical implications in an instantly readable way.

About the author

John R. Shook is Research Associate in Philosophy at the University at Buffalo and Vice President for Research and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Inquiry, Amherst, NY. He writes a regular column in Free Inquiry magazine and has published in many scholarly journals.Liz Stillwaggon Swan gained her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of South Carolina and is now a post-doctoral research fellow at the University at Buffalo. She has published scholarly articles on artificial life.