As we all know, it’s a slippery slope. If you legalize marriage for same-sex couples, then marriage between humans and robots is soon to follow.
Well, not exactly. Human-robot love is inevitable, however, and could first become legal in Massachusetts, according to Dr. David Levy of the University of Maastricht. In his Ph.D thesis, as MSNBC.com reports:
Levy conjectures that robots will become so human-like in appearance, function and personality that many people will fall in love with them, have sex with them and even marry them. . . .
Levy predicts Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize human-robot marriage. “Massachusetts is more liberal than most other jurisdictions in the United States and has been at the forefront of same-sex marriage,” Levy said. “There’s also a lot of high-tech research there at places like MIT.”
Given that I’m married to an engineer, I’ll avoid the obvious line about engineers who can’t get human dates. The comedic possibilities are endless, though. Brides would wear something old, something new, something borrowed, something Bluetooth. Wedding vows would begin, “I, Robot, take you . . . .”
Geeky references aside, the question is, of course, whether a governor who once played a cyborg would veto a bill for human-robot nuptials. Or whether jurisdictions that have banned the sale of sex toys would permit the sale of sexually functioning robots if said sex was going to occur within the institution of marriage.
Children of such marriages, of course, would truly be chips off the old block . . . .
(Thanks to Slashdot for the tip.)