Marriage is a bond of two souls and is made in heaven, but today, it looks as if it can be made in a lab. With rapid advances being made in software and robotics, we can look ahead to sophisticated robots that will be seen as suitable marriage partners. Some researchers even believe that people will fall in love with robots.
So far, robots are seen as allies to help us solve our mechanical and technical problems. But it the 2050, says David Levy, Artifical Intelligence (AI) guru, humans will be making love to robots! It means that robots will share our physical and emotional feelings and the relationship between man and robot will be so personal that it can result in marriage. Robots will not be the cold, predictable machines of today, but actual lovers — precocious, sexy, and remarkably humanlike in appearance.
David Levy answers the question of love with robots, and moves on to consider the mechanics of actually having sex with them in his book “Love and Sex with Robots”. He says that if a thing looks like a bird, chirps like a bird then it is a bird and if a robot looks like a human, expresses feelings like a human, loves like a human, then it is a human. Levy says that it will take about 40 years for AI to develop to a point where robots will be capable of human interactions fully. They will read gestures, hold conversations and get intimate.
If humans can love their pets then why can’t they love robots? According to him love with robots will be as normal as love with other humans. If humans make love to a robot, there will no chance of infectious diseases. A famous TV program, Small Wonder, showed a relationship between a robot with its maker, quite akin to a father-daughter relationship. But now studies say that humans can marry robots. Will there be marital discord and what about the seven-year itch! Today people of the same sex can marry but will the marriage of humans and robots be permitted by authorities? What will be the children like, will they fight? The new ways of programming will deliver the answers.
Who will be the producer of the robots and who will be its buyers? What kind of a a society will it be? What kind of people will marry or buy a robot? People who find it hard to form a relationship, or those with psychological problems, or people who are too shy or have unpleasant personalities are likely to be the early adopters.
Nothing is impossible. Science is gearing up to providing emotional support to those who need, in the form of a robot mate, made in a lab.
