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Human-Robot Love and Marriage
An anonymous reader writes "MSNBC has an article on the impending robo-human coupling: 'My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots,' artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience."
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My god, he hasn't seen the video!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
Actually, I worked with one fellow who had his penis injured by a computer.
Some of IBM's mid-range systems from the late 1980s (actually quite large, physically, by today's standards...) had a circular opening about 2 inches in diameter. This opening was near some circuitry or device that would heat up rather quickly. So with the help of some duct tape and foam, this hardware admin fashioned himself a warm vagina of sorts, right on the side of our IBM system.
We're not sure how long he had a "relationship" with the system, but it came to an end one day when during lunch he ran over to a group of us, with his hands covered in blood. Apparently the foam vagina tore, and a piece of metal got him on the penis shaft. He went to the hospital, and was okay in the end. But he didn't really last long with the company after that...
I'm making a note here:
HUGE SUCCESS!
Remember, your companion cube will never stab you.
Why not marry your lawnmower?
YOU try sticking your dick in the lawnmower, THEN you'll know.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Liubot: Oh, Fry, I love you more than the moon and the stars and the - poetic image number 37 not found
If there's one field that's progressed fairly craply since the '70s, it's AI (and we were predicting this sort of stuff then - by the start of the 21st century). Yes, we have working algorithms to solve specific problems, and a metric tonne of unconnected papers on the nature of intelligence from every discipline, but the general question of producing something capable of developing human intelligence has not been tackled successfully.
An academic in a technical field - or, indeed, the average "expert", to be differentiated from a visionary or "big thinker" - himself acts like a very advanced robot in his field; he has got where he is because he has a great memory for previous results, and a great ability to pattern match to apply to similar problems. If this individual is in AI, he creates models in his own image, which are then doomed to be highly specific.
Humans are more general than this, simply because we're not singularly goal-directed as all these models assume. Put another way: imprison a baby in a bubble and tell him that his only task in life is to compose beautiful music, and he will not - just as non-ethological experiments on primates usually fail to witness intelligent behaviour, because there is no incentive to be intelligent in a cage.
AI needs the sherpherding of visionaries, not necessarily scientists. Certainly not single-minded-goal-directed scientists.
I've often observed that the people most freaked out by homosexuality are repressing it within themselves.
Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity
Bruce Bagemihl
St Martins Press, 1999
ISBN 0-312-19239-8 (hc)
ISBN 0-312-25377-X (pbk)
750 pages of documented animal same sex behaviour from around the world covering pretty well covering every area of fauna speaks for itself.
Which always makes me ask questions when I hear people say that homeosexuality is a choice.
If it is free choice, and animals perform homosexual acts, does that mean that animals have free will and the ability to make such a choice?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The article dwells on marriage with robots, which I can't see happening anytime soon; but robots as a replacement for human prostitutes? Absolutely.
...really 'comes alive' as she moves and responds to your loving care! Touch or talk to your pony and her head moves! As you continue to interact with her, watch her ears wiggle and her eyes blink! Be sure to take extra-special care of your pony. Feed her the carrot and groom her with her brush. Watch her swish her tail back and forth! She even whinnies and snorts, and will sniff your hand! Sit on your pony for a pretend ride...!
The oldest profession is driven by one of humanity's most basic problems (there just aren't enough sexy people to go round) but has lots of downsides (disease, wasted lives, etc). Sex robots seem like a great solution -- provided they are realistic enough to keep the customer satisfied.
So, naturally, we need a X-prize for this problem: a competition for a sex robot that can pass a sexual Turing test. The original Turing Test was for a machine able to hold a conversation indistinguishable from human conversation. We clearly need a sexual Turing test, for a machine able to generate a sexual experience indistinguishable from sex with a human.
I suggest we need two categories:
1) one for "fully autonomous" sex robots, driven by their own AI
2) the other category for "puppet robots" controlled remotely by human operators who would move the robot's limbs, speak through its mouth, etc.
Obviously to start with, robots in the puppet category could be much more realistic than those in the autonomous category. The job of being an operator would be very similar to the job of working on a sex chat line.
But even robots in the autonomous category might be reasonably convincing, even using current technology as used in Aibo or toys such as the "Fur Real Friends Butterscotch Pony".http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000F475PY/reamonsit-21/
Butterscotch is a soft pony toy costing $299 which responds if you stroke it etc. It's not a huge leap from this sort of reaction to the sort of response one would need for a sex robot. Just read the blurb for Butterscotch and replace in your mind the word "pony" with "girl" or "boy"...
With realistic animation, movement and sounds, this incredibly lifelike pony is a very special, once-in-a-lifetime friend. This adorable pony
The sex robot is with us already; just currently disguised as a horse...
I don't think mechanical love will hurt human marriage. In fact, mechanical love has been making human marriages work better since at least the 1880's and possibly as early as 1653. And just a point in fact, the early ancestors of loving robots have been more common than toasters since 1917.
Fixed the typo for you.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Shall we start an "XXX-Prize" then?
*runs*
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
YOU try sticking your dick in the lawnmower, THEN you'll know. Better a lawnmower than my ex-girlfriend.