In 2050 you can marry your vacuum.
A researcher in the Netherlands thinks Massachusetts will be the first state to legalize marriage to a robot, as reported in this MSNBC article. This topic comes on the heels of recent findings that Roomba users have emotional attachment to their vacuums. Don't miss your chance to vote on the topic.
Assuming that robots, that's androids and not vacuums, become so sophisticated in 40 years time that they are recognizably human in both intellect and emotional capacity, I don't see what could be considered so 'icky' about hardware to wetware legal bonding. I think by 2050 not only could robots have something resembling human free will, that brain science will show human free will is a lot less free than we think it is now. The conversion of these two factors might lead to some very interesting debates in the middle of the century.
Notice the researcher is not being as radical as all that. He's not predicting same-tech marriages of robot to robot. Maybe we can expect that for 2101? Or how about the eventual meaninglessness of the concept entirely? Now I'm not arguing that expanding the definition of marriage to the non-human will lead to it's demise, only that profound technological change, such as in the health field, will lead to institutional changes. If humans begin to live happily for 150 to 200 years, or have the ability to live on indefinitely (in the body of a robot?)- would you so easily enter into a vow of unending marriage at age 18? 24? even 35?
Assuming that robots, that's androids and not vacuums, become so sophisticated in 40 years time that they are recognizably human in both intellect and emotional capacity, I don't see what could be considered so 'icky' about hardware to wetware legal bonding. I think by 2050 not only could robots have something resembling human free will, that brain science will show human free will is a lot less free than we think it is now. The conversion of these two factors might lead to some very interesting debates in the middle of the century.
Notice the researcher is not being as radical as all that. He's not predicting same-tech marriages of robot to robot. Maybe we can expect that for 2101? Or how about the eventual meaninglessness of the concept entirely? Now I'm not arguing that expanding the definition of marriage to the non-human will lead to it's demise, only that profound technological change, such as in the health field, will lead to institutional changes. If humans begin to live happily for 150 to 200 years, or have the ability to live on indefinitely (in the body of a robot?)- would you so easily enter into a vow of unending marriage at age 18? 24? even 35?
Labels: future, philosophy, robots
posted by Natebot at
9:51 AM
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