Robot Marriage: DOES Compute?

According to British scientist David Levy, humans will one day be able to marry robots. Hot!

Mr. Levy was awarded a PhD for his thesis paper entitled "Intimate Relationships with Aritificial Partners." Sort of reminds me of some people's relationships with their dildos, or for the more sophisticated (and depraved), the Real Doll.

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According to Mr. Levy, "Trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners." I've actually met a few people who were less life-like than most robots, and who made less suitable marriage partners than I would imagine, say, Johnny 5 or C3PO might (although he's a bit femme for my taste), so I believe Levy's theory completely.

The thesis concluded that the findings, based on 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction, "are just as applicable to human interaction with robots of the future as they are to relationships between humans of today." I'm not sure how he was able to conclude that, unless he traveled to the future and visited a human/cyborg couples therapy session, but whatever.

This calls to mind several other questions about marriage. Will two humans of the same gender ever be allowed to get married? Will the same controversy exist when humans start wanting to marry robots? Will a male human and a "male" robot (or two females) be allowed to marry? What about transgendered robots? Will two robots be able to marry? Two robots of the same gender?

As a sassy robot from an 80s kids movie might say: "You do the math!"


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