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Lookin' for Love in all the Wrong Places
It may be love, but you won't believe
how many batteries this guy takes
"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.
I, for one, welcome our new robot sex overlords. I know Saturday nights won't be complete unless we're watching Robot Baywatch, and teenagers everywhere will be waiting for the Popular Mechanics Swimsuit issue each year. I'm just hoping for something more like Tricia Helfer and not the Tin Man.
Take me to your leader, er, programmer
Hey -- I just can't help but wondering how big the
freaking boxes are going to be on these things.
I mean, it'll be like getting a refrigerator for Christmas
But robot love might not be all that it's cracked up to be. After all, having something that's a combination of a wife and beer cooler might sound neat, but there are all kinds of moral dilemmas.
For instance, robot sex could provide an outlet for criminal sexual urges. "If you have pedophiles and you let them use a robotic child, will that reduce the incidence of them abusing real children, or will it increase it?" Arkin asked. "I don't think anyone has the answers for that yet — that's where future research needs to be done."
Keeping a robot for sex could reduce human prostitution and the problems that come with it. However, "in a marriage or other relationship, one partner could be jealous or consider it infidelity if the other used a robot," Levy said. "But who knows, maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying, 'Darling, not tonight, I have a headache,' you could get 'Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?' "
What age should a kid be allowed to get a robot? I thought deciding on what age to get the kid a cellphone was tough. Should you share robots? Is that infidelity? Can a person marry more than one robot at a time? Will robots be trolling the bars, looking for love? If you pay a robot twenty bucks for a good time, is that a crime? And most importantly, will they take checks?
One thing is for certain, this is going to create a lot of new Country & Western songs and Jerry Springer shows.
Levy's work is entitled "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners"
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