Sex Robots & Vegan Meat

‘A tour of the lurid fringes of the tech world’ – The Times‘Entertaining . . . like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood’ – New StatesmanWhat if we could have babies without having to bear children, eat meat without killing animals, have the perfect sexual relationship without compromise or choose the time of our painless death?To find out, Jenny Kleeman has interviewed a sex robot, eaten a priceless lab-grown chicken nugget, watched foetuses growing in plastic bags and attended members-only meetings where people learn how to kill themselves.Many of the people Kleeman has met say they are finding solutions to problems that have always defined and constricted humankind. But what truly motivates them? What kind of person devotes their life to building a death machine? What kind of customer is desperate to buy an artificially intelligent sex doll – and why? Who is campaigning against these advances, and how are they trying to stop them? And what about the many unintended consequences such inventions will inevitably unleash?Sex Robots & Vegan Meat is not science fiction. It’s not about what might happen one day – it’s about what is happening right now, and who is making it happen. In the end, it asks a simple question: are we about to change what it means to be human . . . for ever?

Thoughtful and diverting . . . Kleeman’s sceptical, humane instincts help her to unpack the possibilities of frontier tech . . . Even if it doesn’t have the answers, this elegantly written and eye-opening book poses the right questions, Mesmerising, Kleeman’s entertaining survey of the latest advances in life sciences . . . a little like Louis Theroux channelling Margaret Atwood. She is an accomplished storyteller, A pleasingly sceptical investigation into the innovations that could change the way we eat, have sex and die . . . Reading [Kleeman's] book, you are left dismayed not so much by what lies ahead as by the current reality of the men with planet-sized egos vying with one another to control birth, food, sex and death. It’s a habit that’s as old as the hills, Sex Robots and Vegan Meat is a tour of the lurid fringes of the tech world, which will appeal to fans of Mark O’Connell’s To Be a Machine. Kleeman is an acerbic guide, whose understated common sense contrasts with the grandiosity of her interviewees.

Jenny Kleeman is a journalist and documentary-maker. She writes for the Guardian, Tortoise, The Times and the Sunday Times. She has reported for BBC One's Panorama, Channel 4's Dispatches and VICE News Tonight on HBO, as well as making thirteen films from across the globe for Channel 4's Unreported World. Sex Robots & Vegan Meat is her first book.