If Not a Dolphin, If Not Yourself, Then Marry a Robot
Posted On February 18, 2008
“Not tonight, dear, I have to reboot.”
Artificial-intelligence researcher David Levy projected a mock image on a screen of a smiling bride in a wedding dress holding hands with a short robot groom. “Why not marry a robot? Look at this happy couple,” he said to a chuckling crowd…. In his 2007 book, Love and Sex with Robots, Levy contends that sex, love and even marriage between humans and robots are coming soon and, perhaps, are even desirable.
Indeed, if same-sex “marriage” advocates succeeding in tossing off all bounds relating to the definition of marriage, there won’t be much left to prevent marrying robots. Or dolphins. Or yourself…
Related:
… and any article you see on same-sex “marriage.”
5 Comments
This is incredibly offensive to gays and lesbians. Comparing the love a gay person has for another human being to relationships between people and non-humans is similar to the propaganda used to de-humanize the Jews, and should be above you, Tom.
I’ll take that criticism to heart, os. Here’s what I was trying to say, which may not have come across cleanly.
The issue is marriage. It has been re-defined in our culture: where once it was an institution ordained by God for the establishment of families (among other purposes), it is now an institution ordained by governments for the personal (not to mention economic) satisfaction of the participants. This comes both from hetero- and a homosexual sources. Easy divorce came from the heterosexual side of the house, and has largely been the result of married individuals’ seeking individual fulfillment rather than the mutual yielding/love type of fulfillment that marriage and family call for. The homosexual contribution to this change of mindset is obvious.
If marriage is an institution ordained by government for the personal satisfaction of participants, then anything becomes possible, as exemplified in all these things: marrying animals, marrying robots, marrying oneself, and marrying a member of the same sex. (Think quotation marks around each “marrying” there.)
Marriage has been around for thousands and thousands of years, and it has served societies’ needs for stable upbringing of the next generation. It is the fundamental social unit, through which we can best be prepared for all other social interactions. Without controversy, children raised in stable, loving, two-parent (mom and dad) homes are far healthier (on average) than children raised in other environments. This is the difficult ideal that we dare not give up.
Homosexual men and women often have genuine, deep love for each other. That, however, is not the ultimate basis for marriage, and marriage is the issue on which I was intending to comment here.
Excellent response, Tom.
Tom,
Here’s a related documentary that might be interesting to discuss. Be sure to watch the movie trailer.
Demographic Winter – the decline of the human family
It is interesting to note that no European country has a replacement-level birthrate (see Q&A). Will the god of science be asked to step in and mass produce humans so that a dying global economy can be saved? Hmmm….a very real moral (not scientific) situation we may be asked to decide.
I predict that moral relativists won’t be asked to head up the decision making process. Sorry, DL and Paul.
Maybe traditional families aren’t so bad after all. Maybe we need less divorce and less abortions. Maybe God was right.
I think one thing you’re beginning to see is a retreat from reality in our culture. We are so isolated; our relationships are executed on MySpace (where we are alone with our technology). Our education is what we see on television and process within ourselves without human discourse. This is not rugged individualism, it’s a hiding away from real life.
Marriage just seems to be the next victim to this attitude. Why marry a fallen, inconvenient human when a programmable robot promises “interaction” without the risk of true community?