Forecast: Sex and Marriage With Robots by 2050

[Miko Miko]

Originally Posted by Deathkillz;

but this can be an otaku's dream come true...horny kids would be losing their virginity at the ripe age of 10 at this rate

that would be creepy

[monir]

Originally Posted by xris

"Artificial Partners" are already available, you can obtain full-size, (ahem) functional sex-dolls already (and I'm not talking about blow-up dolls either). These clearly are not robots, just manikins but the idea that "it's just a matter of adding some electronics to them to add some vibration", "or endowing the robots with a few audio responses" seems to be a far, far step to call these "robots".

I'm sorry... but if someone else made the above statement I would have just said, "aha".. shrug and move on. But because YOU said it, I lol'ed. Okay.. okay.. I'll be on topic.

I personally don't give a hoot about this "news" (come on..., it's FOX "news"), but if the option becomes available in my life time, I would definitely get a robot for maid service. I'm tired of doing my own laundry TWICE in a week, every week.

[MightyJAK]

This thread has made me and think. Thanks to the mods for not deleting it, and to the other members for keeping their comments (mostly) mature, especially...

Originally Posted by Ichihara Asako

...
Look at Angelic Layer (the whole deal with Icchan developing it to fund the research in to the medical side) for an anime example suitable for this forum. Then Chobits, which is set a few years after Angelic Layer, for the kind of possible results. =p
...
I won't even go in to the 'moral' side with people thinking it's wrong and such. I just think it's interesting on a technological level, I don't care about the social implications.

...and...

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

...

A marriage is a contract between two subjects, not a subject and an object. A programmed machine like we have them today can't marry anybody. A true AI could. Maybe marriage between humans and AIs, aliens, or genetically uplifted chimpanzees will be legal in 2050. Fine with me. But if Levy thinks that a true artificial intelligence will be reality in 2050 then why should they marry somebody "just plain ugly" or having a "unpleasant personality"?

Leaving the problem what exactly makes a true AI to the philosophers, one thing for sure: Somebody or something is only capable of marrying as a subject if he/she/it is also capable of wanting to file for divorce. If we have marriage with robots in 2050 we'll also have robots who'll kick you out of your house and deny you contact with your robot children for having had an affair with the robot next door. And we'll see stories in Robo-Cosmo like 'I had sex with a human, and he was a total loser in bed!'
...

Slice of Life brings up a good point about the definition of marriage. Both parties must be of mature intelligence to enter this contract, that's why we have age-of-consent laws. On the other hand, there have been examples of people having a pet the sole beneficiary in their will. If this has been allowed, and there is enough demand for it, we may see the laws on marriage bent before AI has reached a level comparable to that of an adult human.

I can see how people can be thinking of parallels to Chobits for near-term, situations with people becoming sexually and romantically involved with robots that have primitive AI, if they even have true AI at all. But for the far future, I see more parallels to The Animatrix and the original Astro Boy manga, where robots with advanced AI are a separate class, and robot/robot marriages are more common than robot/human ones. In the instances where there is a robot/human marriage, it's more likely that the contract will bind the human to the AI housed in the robot rather than the robot shell, as the AI is just a program, and could be transferred to a different robot body if need be. And since many people are asexual, with no need for sex in a romantic relationship, there may very well be relationships between humans and AIs without physical bodies, like Elly Person and Calus in Phantasy Star Online, or Hitoshi Kobe and Saati at the beginning of AI ga Tomaranai. The relationships could become more complicated when people develop cybernetic brains and become capable of directly interacting with an AI, as with Motoko Kusanagi and Project 2501 in Ghost in the Shell.


Wooo... reading this thread is making me want to watch Armitage III again.. which reminds me of something that has been barely discussed in this thread; the primal reason people come together and have sex: PROCREATION. How would this be handled in a human/robot marriage? The first thing that comes to mind is adoption, but people have an strong instinct to create and raise their own offspring, which is why people spend so much in fertility clinics even though there are more than enough orphans to go around. Also, some people may have a issue with a robot being the legal guardian of a human child.

Obviously a "male" robot would be unable to became a father, but a "female" self-replicating robot could be programmed to build a "baby" inside itself in order to mimic the process of human reproduction, possibly even analyzing the father's genetic code to create an offspring that matches the father's genotype.


In response to those who have made "no-way could a person love a robot" comments: The original article made reference to people becoming attached to ELIZA. At first I was a bit surprised when I read that line. I had looked at the code for the Commodore 64 version and was amazed by how simple it was, framing its questions around the user's input, simulating the school of psychotherapy that all a patient really needs is someone to tell his problems to. There have been experiments where conversation programs have fooled scholars of Shakespeare into believing they were talking to a live human, and a chatbot that convinced people it was real simply by logging into a certain chatroom every day, making a few topical statements about baseball and other subjects, and politely excusing itself before leaving a few minutes later. The other chatroom regulars were soon greeting the chatbot by name whenever "he" entered, and would express concern for their "friend" if he didn't log in at his usual time.

Just think about that. The programs we have nowadays don't even have to be advanced AI to convince people they are real. Couple that with animatronics capable of realistic human movements, and it's plausible that a robot could be built that could generate emotional and sexual feelings from people who can't tell the difference (or don't mind the difference) between a machine's preprogrammed responses and those of a real human.

[teachopvutru]

Originally Posted by Ice Climbers

I would tend to think of this as more of an companion type instead of a sex slave, but maybe that word itself is misleading the conversation here.

Well, yea ... except that there's this line in the article...

'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?'"'

[Kankel]

This reminds of Armitage The Third.The robot who could concieve.Can it be done in the future?

[Aoie_Emesai]

Originally Posted by Ice Climbers

I would tend to think of this as more of an companion type instead of a sex slave, but maybe that word itself is misleading the conversation here.

The foxnews article is about a companion rather than a sex slave, you are correct there. But I think some may be thinking of the robot as the other instead.

Originally Posted by Slice of Life

It seems that Mr. Levy was so excited to see his name on Fox that he confused a few important terms. If Fox hasn't made the whole story up using a few quotes ripped out of context which I consider 100 times more likely. But OK.

A marriage is a contract between two subjects, not a subject and an object. A programmed machine like we have them today can't marry anybody. A true AI could. Maybe marriage between humans and AIs, aliens, or genetically uplifted chimpanzees will be legal in 2050. Fine with me. But if Levy thinks that a true artificial intelligence will be reality in 2050 then why should they marry somebody "just plain ugly" or having a "unpleasant personality"?

Leaving the problem what exactly makes a true AI to the philosophers, one thing for sure: Somebody or something is only capable of marrying as a subject if he/she/it is also capable of wanting to file for divorce. If we have marriage with robots in 2050 we'll also have robots who'll kick you out of your house and deny you contact with your robot children for having had an affair with the robot next door. And we'll see stories in Robo-Cosmo like 'I had sex with a human, and he was a total loser in bed!'

BTW, I think true AI will still be a far cry in 2050. As the article said, we had Eliza 40 years ago and ever since then AI was "just around the corner". And I predict this won't have changed in 40 more years. But feel free to bump this thread in 2050 and laugh at me.

Of course sex dolls will have improved until 2050. But that's a no-brainer.

I sorta wished the article title was called "Forecast: Sex and/or marriage with robots by 2050." It's just a prediction, not a forecast.

Originally Posted by Zero Shinohara

Meh, I saw that yesterday and obviously, my initial Otaku-based response was to go "Woot, Catgirl slave persocons!", and I still stand by that initial idea. I do understand that most people wouldn't find a relationship with a robot a viable thing and rather, an immoral, inhumane and psycho thing. But we all have our views on this, and I don't wanna write an essay on the issue.

Personally, I think that marriage is extending things a bit far... true that interracial and same-sex marriages were unlawful years ago, but they were still done between people. I've never heard of people being married to objects - though it doesn't mean it hasn't happened already... who knows, there're all types of people out there. 50 years is probably too early to have robots that would substitute human relationships to the majority of people out there. Perhaps to some of us hardcore hikkis who can't seem to fit in the world as a whole... But anyway.

Even though you may find the idea of spending time with an object, immoral, there are people who are desperate for a relationship that they will use a inanimate object as a tool for themselves.

--

For me I don't really care for this myself, but rather what kind of response will it bring to the world as a whole. Personally, I like to watch from the side lines and see what happens onward. I wonder what Confucius would say ^_^

[kitto-chan]

I have nothing against marriage with robots (or AI in this case), but if marriage as pointed out by SoL is a marriage between two intigent being. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if one was to wed "anything" in the event that the relationship does not last. Does that mean that the robot or in the case of kohakuslayer Persecons will get half of the estate of the groom? (I'm assuming mostly males will wed robots).

[Ichihara Asako]

Originally Posted by MightyJAK

Wooo... reading this thread is making me want to watch Armitage III again.. which reminds me of something that has been barely discussed in this thread; the primal reason people come together and have sex: PROCREATION. How would this be handled in a human/robot marriage? The first thing that comes to mind is adoption, but people have an strong instinct to create and raise their own offspring, which is why people spend so much in fertility clinics even though there are more than enough orphans to go around. Also, some people may have a issue with a robot being the legal guardian of a human child.

Actually, this is a good reason for this kind of thing. The world is already overpopulated and struggling with resources to sustain the amount of people on the planet. If a good chunk of the population stops breeding, then it would help the problem a lot. A large amount of pregnancies are unplanned, which could be avoided if people were doing it with sexbots instead.

But then, if anybody's seen the movie Idiocracy then you probably know that even if the smart people stop breeding, the stupids will continue going like rabbits.

Anyway. I think the label of 'marriage' is the problem here. You'd still 'own' it. They don't have their own true free will to choose, and I don't ever see robots/androids being developed that do... they'd defy the whole three laws and whatnot. You buy a partner, and that's that. Marriage shouldn't come in to the equation. Whether you buy an android for sex, or as a simple companion (as one gets a cat or dog) or as a maid (which would be great, I also hate doing laundry!) or whatever, I don't think a label like marriage should come in to it.

I don't think it matters how intelligent they get, and how advanced the AIs are. If humanity created a superior being with a superior intelligence, it'd be the end for us. A lot of production is already automated via robots, if we had true free willed androids around, they could so easily wipe us out... they don't suffer any of the medical problems we do, and could 'live' for far, far longer with mechanicbots and automated production lines for parts. Plus they could just upload their 'brains' to new bodies and such. Whole realm of possibilities to go wrong there.

I'm a bit of a sci-fi fan, though. And giving robots free will has almost never worked out... and I think, while fictional, those stories have it pretty right. =p

[RavenHawk]

This is what I said previously.

I can't grasp the idea ya know. When talking about sex and robots, my friends and I usually call it the "KOS-MOS Syndrome". Well, the reason why is that it's usually KOS-MOS that gets had, well in our case. So it's like humans "fit" her with human body parts so they can "play" with her. Now I dunno about real life, the closest thing we can get for robot sex would be silicone parts or any of those rubbery material parts.

[WanderingKnight]

Hmm? What's all this narrow-mindness? Let people marry if they want, dammit! There's no godly rule or something that forbids you from doing it, even with a thing.

At any rate, marriage is a facade, so if you want to mimic marriage life with a robot, you could do it anyways.

[Marina]

Another person that thinks of Chobits, but then I also think of Appleseed. Will we ever get to the point where robots start to actually LOOK exactly like humans..to the point where someday no one will be able to even tell the difference? Would it be possible for the race to almost die out if everyone marries a robot incapable of inpregnating/tion? I once read a creative writing piece set far into the future where the entire world has become populated solely by females. Why? Because once we mastered the ability to control creation, what were men needed for? Once such sex machines were invented, who needed the actual thing, especially when you can turn on or off those quirks that may annoy (Stepford :P). In a way I don't want to be narrow-minded and close of the chance for many to have the comfort of a robotic spouse, but another part of me just cringes from the unhealthy effects that would definitely rebound off of allowing such a practice to occur.

[Thewanderer]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Hmm? What's all this narrow-mindness? Let people marry if they want, dammit! There's no godly rule or something that forbids you from doing it, even with a thing.

At any rate, marriage is a facade, so if you want to mimic marriage life with a robot, you could do it anyways.

So... marriage with inanimate objects is okay?

Seriously... it'd be just like marrying any other sex toy IMO.

[innominate]

Anybody here thought of polygamy? o.o

Something just made me feel that with robots, marriage could be bought like, you know how you buy household machines like toasters?

[WanderingKnight]

So... marriage with inanimate objects is okay?

Seriously... it'd be just like marrying any other sex toy IMO.

As long as you think it's okay... there's no need to ask the robot for consent.

Marriage is what you consider it to be, not what other people think it is. So why should you worry about what other people think? As long as it makes you happy, it works for me.

[kitto-chan]

But the fact is marriage is a legally binding contract between two consenting parties. Owning an object and marring one is differ. Just because you own that object does not mean it has free will. To be able to consent the object in question must have free will. Its like saying "I want to marry my dog". The dog has no intelligence to comprehend marriage. Also if you keep your dog fence up say with invisible fence that dog will learn to stay within the boundary of the house, in essences caging it up. Cage up any human and see how long that last.

May not be the best example of free will, but I was trying to show that a robot if purchase doesn't come with free will regardless of intelligent.

[King Lycan]

Ok soo we can have sex with robots in the year 2050 talk about strange because only a person with no game would have "Sex" with a robot >_< or a retarded person

[Slice of Life]

Originally Posted by WanderingKnight

Marriage is what you consider it to be, not what other people think it is. So why should you worry about what other people think? As long as it makes you happy, it works for me.

"A difference that makes no difference is no difference at all."

What exactly would you expect from such a "marriage" with a machine?

My blessings? I frankly don't care.

The Pope's blessings? You won't get them.

Tax benefits? Hahahahah ....

The right to refuse to give evidence against you? Just encrypt "her" harddisk.

[Vexx]

Demonstrate a robot as an independent self-supporting legally unowned entity who enjoys walks in the park and then you might discuss "marriage" (or civil unions).

Until then, all we've got is some buffoon media people blowing hot air (from faux news, naturally).

I'm perfectly fine with any sort of civil union between two or more entities that are generally accepted as having equal status. There will always be some rough edges to that.
Note this puts some overly patriarchal cultures in peril from me

Now.... sex playmates ala "Tickle me Chi" by 2050? Very probably and very expensive (remember the playmates the signal hacker had in the movie Serenity).

[Pell14]

i dont really think we could advance so far in 2050 that people could truely fall in love with robots. those robots we seen in anime/tv/movies are more like machine with souls rather than ai. if that could happen, i think cyborgs will have to appear first. maybe just sex with robots by 2050.

[FatPianoBoy]

If predictions regarding things "50 years in the future" where ever even close, my 1983 sedan should be able to fly.

Though we are closer to a true AI than most realize, this kind of issue is much further off than 50 years, if even in this epoch, depending on how long the powers that be can keep their hands off the big red button.