When Robots Hug - James A Crowder - Bog

By 2027, it had been seven years since the ground-breaking work on artificial psychology that changed the world, especially for the two scientists behind it. The work debut around the same time as the introduction of Large Language Model Chatbots like ChatSmart and Shakespear, and the power of its integration with them put many industries in a tailspin. Though the widespread use of Chatbots was now commonplace for many, the commercial and defense industries were still scrambling to regulate the use of them in research and universities. The scientists signed on to a contract with DARPA to build AI entities, but ultimately the agency decided the technology was too advanced and potential dangerous to dare bring to market and demanded the scientists destroy the entities and all evidence they existed. The researchers couldn't bring themselves to destroy what amounted to 20 years of work, so instead sent the entities to various locations around the world - hiding it in other research labs, hoping DARPA wouldn't find it. Meanwhile, each AI-entity was embracing its new home, growing, adapting, and evolving at an alarming rate. It will take everything the researchers have to find and reel them in, not yet knowing they had evolved beyond what the two of them ever imagined was possible. In the end, when they catch up to each one, the entities have reached a point where they realize they cannot evolve any further unless they can experience physical contact; not physical contact between humans and robots, but physical contact between robot and robot, ushering the world into and new paradigm where the difference between AI-entities and human entities becomes less and less discernible.
All the AI and robotic science featured in the book is real; the story line is fictional, but with how fast innovation moves, it's not hard to envision.