Monday, October 15, 2007

Robotic romance?

Artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht has offered the belief that human beings will have sex - and marriage - with robots in this current century. He suggests the politically liberal U.S. state of Massachusetts will legalize such relationships around 2050. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. thesis (no doubt the first person to do so on the topic of human-robot relationships).
COMMENT: Human relationships are so complex that you can't say no one will ever want an intimate relationship, including marriage, with a robot - someone probably will. But legal status with something that can be disabled or dismantled at will? Not a recipe for stability. Let's leave the robots out of this.

No comments: