And you thought gay marriage was controversial
Via Art Caplan comes this article in which a researcher at the University of Maastricht predicts that human/robot marriage could be no more than a few decades away:
"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.
At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, "but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," Levy said.
Unless they watch this important public service announcement.
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Which is why South Korea's attemps to draw up the laws of robotics (handily referencing Asimov) don't really seem all that farfetched.
- by Kelly on Oct 14, 2007 at 12:40 PM | link
When someone can point to a sentient robot, or one approaching that state so as to arrive within the lifetime any of us, I will consider this a real issue and not before. Very few of them are currently much better than a Furby with wheels, mislaeding media reports aside.
Essays from the seventies thought we would have no unwanted children and cheap space flight by 2000, we always seem to get a little optimistic about the rate of real discovery. My own personal opinion, people will be seriously advocating marraige to animals before suggesting it for robots.
- by emily on Oct 15, 2007 at 1:46 PM | link
Hmm. I notice this "news" story is currently rated '2/5' by 3777 users. Which is on the low side for a fluff story. Is it horror at the notion of robot spouses, or a recongition that the plausibility and news-value of the story is negligible?
- by emily on Oct 15, 2007 at 2:36 PM | link