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Humans Marrying Robots? Experts Say It's Really Coming (fortune.com)
If you were rooting for fictitious chatacters Dolores and William to make it work on HBO's Westworld, just wait a few more decades and their relationship may be able to exist in real life. That's right, a few experts say marriage will be legal between humans and robots by 2050. From a report on Fortune: At a conference last week called "Love and Sex with Robots" at Goldsmith University in London, David Levy, author of a book on human-robot love, made the bold prediction. And while some other experts were skeptical, Adrian Cheok, a professor at City University London and director of the Mixed Reality Lab in Singapore, supported Levy's idea. "That might seem outrageous because it's only 35 years away. But 35 years ago people thought homosexual marriage was outrageous," Cheok said. "Until the 1970s, some states didn't allow white and black people to marry each other. Society does progress and change very rapidly."
Marriage seems to be becoming less relevant. So, I believe that while folks may have relations with robots, the concept of "marriage" may be irrelevant. Others will likely disagree
Marrying some machinery? I predict that people will be allowed to marry their dogs next. Then it will extend to other pets, including pet rocks. Then already dead people.
Not until a robot can be legally recognized as a person, having the ability to make legally binding decisions. We'd need AI personhood first.
This is the same silly argument fundamentalists were making about gay marriage -- that it'd lead to people marrying their pets or inanimate objects. Not until those things have legal capacity to enter into a contract.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
Well.. as long as church and state is separate and marriage doesn't have any impact on taxes or give other benefits then I don't see why people shouldn't be allowed to marry their toasters.
Make sure you unplug it before you plug it!
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Are we that close or is this a great leap from toaster to life partner in one shot?
First taxes, then suffrage, then marriage. I imagine AI "rights" will come in that order, if ever.
Yeah. That's why people have been so vehemently against old people marrying, or people who can't have kids marrying, all this time. Because it's about the children.
The entire purpose of a marriage is to be a legal agreement between a couple and the rest of their society. It provides legal rights to the couple as a whole, and to each individual member of the couple. Other aspects of marriage such as love, religious meaning, etc are what society adds on as it sees fit, but the core of marriage is its legal meaning.
The question of whether robots and humans will be allowed to marry is not the important one. The important question is whether robots will be allowed to own property and be given unalienable human rights. If that happens, marriage between robot and human is inevitable. But until that happens marriage between man and machine is pointless.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
How can this not be here already?! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
> marriage
Why is the definition of a word important? Call it what you like, it's going to be what it is. Life doesn't need to fit to definitions.
robots will have no rights and no min wage
> marriage is for creating stability and commitment for raising healthy well adjusted children A robotic uterus inside a skilled children rearing android robot.
How would separation of church and state impact how our tax law treats marriage? Marriage is a civil institution, which some religions add additional spiritual meaning to if they like. In the US there is already a proper separation considering all marriages require a marriage certificate issued by the state. Whether or not the couple wants a religious leader to preside over a ceremony is purely up to the couple and has no impact on the marriage's legality. Considering my brother in law officiated over my wedding with a certificate he easily obtained online (he is an atheist too), the government does not discriminate over who is allowed to officiate over a legal wedding.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
This story is utter bullshit. May as well write about marriage between toasters and humans. The only purpose the story serves is to blow up the ego and exposure of the "experts" in question.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
a robot would be the best way to go...
"Futurist" = "Big-ego clue-less moron with grand visions"
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Do you REALLY want a world where people are totally controlled by their phones/internet, live alone in small rented boxes and never "interact" with other humans in person?
Seriously, the world you are proudly creating just keeps looking suckier and suckier.
By your own definition then marriage has been a complete, total and epic failure. The divorce rate, single parent families, the rate of kids on heavy mood altering drugs from who knows how much childhood trauma from mom, dad or both.
"Krieger-san my cherry blossoms are wilting."
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
We all live naturally. It is well within the limits of our human nature to to invent things like hand washing and surgery and gay marriage and robot marriage, and religion to comfort and control the fearful.
The idea of a human marrying a robot isn't outrageous. It's just plain stupid. Until we get to the point where the robot you're marrying can actually interact with you to the extent of another human being (which probably requires sentience), you'd just be marrying a very elaborate toaster. You can do that right now if you wish, but you're going to be branded as crazy and for good reason.
We're most likely not getting sentient AI in just 35 years.
all day masterbating
When did Gor come into this? Not that it wouldn't, probably...
But there is another fictional reality with relevant ideas, too.
Stephan
Robosexual.
"Life doesn't need to fit to definitions."
But it's our nature. And not only that, change the language and you change perceptions.
Ever read 1984?
However, robots will have to improve a heck of a lot if they are to become marriageable. What is more likely is that people (mostly men) will have more and more sophisticated sex dolls.
marriage is for creating stability and commitment for raising healthy well adjusted children. any other use of it is an abomination to nature....
And what is more stable for a child than being raised by 2 loving parents? It's sure as hell a lot more stable than kids raised by single parents, divorced parents, or grandparents because the biological parents are completely absent. Are homosexual people incapable of stability and commitment (I've known a lot more promiscuous straight people than I know promiscuous gay people)? As long as one person plays the father role and another plays the mother role, does it matter what bits they have between their legs? And how weak is your marriage to begin with if it can be affected by other people getting married?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Cherry 2000 all the way. Actuators with benefits.
A marriage is a legal commitment between two adults; personhood is a requirement. That's why adult men and women can marry each other, and by gender neutrality of law, that extends to homosexual relations. Dogs, robots, and toasters are not legal adults; they don't have personhood or the ability to enter legally binding commitments, therefore they cannot marry. And I seriously doubt AI will advance fast enough for robots to be reasonably granted personhood by 2030.
God dangit you damn liberals it's Adam and Eve or Steve not Adam and SEXBOT4000!!!!!!!!
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
granting robots human rights = min wage, ot, and other work place costs.
Hell there should be an 100K robot min wage so that people are not put out of work / there is an big tax base for basic income.
In accordance with Poe's Law, I have no idea if you're trolling or if you actually believe your nonsense.
> marriage is for creating stability and commitment for raising healthy well adjusted children.
So you are opposed to infertile people getting married, and to married people using birth control, because both of those are "outrageous" too?
> an abomination to nature....
Do even a tiny amount of research, you lazy ignoramus, and you'll find that same-sex relations are common in many species in nature. It's not at all just a human thing. But if you believe so strongly that you shouldn't do anything that doesn't happen in nature, why are you typing on the Internet? No other animals do THAT.
which might be a good thing
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This is a non-story. At best it's some author looking for publicity for his book, and Slashdot editors should be ashamed they actually posted it.
Robosexual.
Finally we'll get to REALLY test that damn Energizer Bunny...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Marriage is a contract between two people able to provide consent. As far as I can tell, "marrying a robot" is little more than clickbait and has no more meaning than being able to marry your car. You would need to first ascribe uniquely human rights to robots, then you would need to judge them able to consent and enter into a contract.
Or perhaps we are purely talking about the government's status of "married" for tax filing and welfare benefits purposes (like the gay marriage debate). Of course, here the government could do whatever the heck they wanted with the definition. You could access the separate tax brackets by getting a marriage license with your robot if the government says you're allowed to do that. You could obtain social security spousal benefits if your robot dies, if the government says you're allowed to do that. But, again, not all that interesting and just a clickbait headline.
This is a pretty strange question. Definitions of words are important when they are used in laws.
Meh, it's not the marriage bots we need to worry about. It's the sexbots. Within 10 years there will be robots that are good enough to satisfy most of a man's needs. They'll be kind, forgiving, sweet, feminine, encouraging - pretty much the opposite of today's woman who has to make it in a man's world. This will have gargantuan effects on our society. Men will save up for their sexbot, and afterwards drop off the grid. Some men will buy shares in a company that rotates the sexbots once a week, some will buy several, and some will buy one for a wife replacement like in the article.
But the real change will be in the Third World, where women are scarce. From this New Yorker article:
Sexbots will put an end to most of this. Women worldwide will welcome the sexbot revolution as it will mean much less abuse, much less sexual harassment, much less rape. They will finally be able to ditch the unwanted chore of sexually satisfying undesirable men. Permanently. There are thirty million undesirable men in China who will remain lifelong virgins, celibate as monks despite the fact that they really, really want not to be. Sexbots will give these men a chance at happiness, and women will thank them for it. If sexbots mean a single woman doesn't get acid thrown in her face for rejecting an undesirable man, then it's all worth it.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
a /. spinoff for these ludicrous stories about "experts" and their opinions? Maybe nationalenquirer.com could help host it?
I don't have time to scroll past this kind of thing at work, but I might enjoy it later after a few sixpacks.
(As if a robot with fully human intelligence and emotional capability would be available for marriage! They'd all be used as slaves by the companies that could afford them, or expendable cannon fodder by the government.)
Marriage makes a mockery of itself. Pretending to be many things to everyone, when it has really only ever been some things to some people. Many of the things it pretends to be don't belong to it. It's not the only way one can create or raise children. It's not the only way one can have sexual relations. It's not the only way one can create a heritable chain. It's not the only way one can be in love. It's not the only way people can stay together. It's not a way that assures people will stay together (and in fact, it tends to be a way people stay together when they really, really should not because of the legal morass it brings.) It is not uniquely "Christian." Finally, it's not necessary.
Marriage has been used to bind nations and states and smaller social groups. It has been used to bring peace. It has been used to foment war. It has been used to provide groupings that would not suffer from social stigma. It has been used to assert relationships in the face of family opposition. It has been used to escape bad home situations. It has been used to control women. It has been used to acquire wealth. It has been used to consolidate power, and to fragment it. It has been used to provide a reliable source of sexual relief. It has been used to assert the validity of relationships in the face of social and legal dissent. It extracts a high cost from society, with about two million marriages per year incurring an average cost of $26,000 apiece just in the USA alone - before the marriage even gets off the ground. It has been used as a despicable bludgeon against those whom various groups don't find "worthy" of their particular conception of "what marriage is."
Every important aspect of life in general: love, sex, having (or not having) children, companionship, support, teamwork, inheritance, continuity and more, all can exist in healthy and robust form outside of marriage, as well as in.
Every undesirable aspect of life can exist within the context of marriage: physical, mental and financial abuse, hopelessness, isolation, poverty, sickness, etc., as well as out.
Marriage guarantees nothing. Avoiding marriage guarantees a (very) few things, but some of which have real value, such as never being the victim of a divorce lawyer. Some of the things marriage brings are not consequences of the marriage, but of despicable, coercive force: if you aren't married, you may not be allowed to see someone you care about who is in extremis. You may not be allowed to take care of their obligations for them if they are sick. These are not true aspects of marriage; they are aspects of tyranny. Marriage doesn't own these things. Asshole legislators own them.
It's not that people are making a mockery of marriage. It's that marriage is, in a very large number of instances, a matter of a large number of extraordinarily false flags being used to lure the relatively innocent into what amounts to a trap, when they never really needed to go there in the first place.
The optimum solution, IMHO, would be to separate the contract aspects of marriage out into just that, well-defined contracts, while marriage itself carried only the ritualized expression of a state of mind, and one that no one claimed to "own", as we often see today. I doubt we'll get there any time soon, but that's precisely where we need to go.
As it stands now, two (or more) informed, consenting people want to get married, or not, I see it as entirely their business. The second I hear someone outside the relationship explaining their so-called reason why it is their opinion, and not the opinions of those making the choices, that should dominate whether they can or should get married, I stop listening. On the other hand, when someone says "here are some things you might want to know about marriage"... that's often a good thing. As long as the information being passed along is actually relevant and reality-based.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
In this context, "expert" seems to mean "I wrote a book claiming something is true".
#DeleteChrome
No. If the individual is a conscious entity, nothing makes that acceptable other than the individual's informed, conscious choice.
Just because something can be done, doesn't mean it is acceptable. The examples are numerous, and many are outright obvious: Murder. Rape. Slavery. Theft. Oppression. Etc.
The only thing that wold make deleting memories acceptable is personal, informed choice and consent. It has nothing to do with the form of intelligent life involved.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The issue here is that we are using one word to describe two wholly distinct things. This problem with the language forces you to confuse the issue in your response, too. Marriage is both a contract between two individuals (having nothing to do with the state, except that the state enforces the contract) and also a government legal status written into various laws. You can have one, the other, or both. Two men were always allowed to marry each other in the sense that marriage is a contract between them. But two men were not previously given the government status of "married", and therefore certain tax situations and welfare benefits did not apply to them.
Marriage as a contract is actually quite a strange thing. If you essentially opt-in to your state's default marriage contract terms by having no explicit contract when you marry your partner, the terms can be changed after the fact without your consent. For example, the state in which you are married can change its laws regarding property split upon divorce. This retroactively applies to you, having been married many years earlier, even though you had no opportunity to agree, and may not have even been notified.
"Futurist" = "Big-ego clue-less moron with grand visions"
Why did you plagiarise my definition of "Software Architect"?
Nothing in parent's comment indicated he/she is religious.
I think marriage has been a failure. I struggle to understand what it even means at this point. You're right that it's not about procreation, because people physically unable or just unwilling to procreate are married all the time. And unmarried couples have children all the time. It's not about commitment, because you can terminate the marriage at any time for any reason in most states. Divorce rates are high. Infidelity rates are high. It's not about supporting women financially as dependents, because our society wants women in the workplace, and many see financial dependency as a dangerous situation for women anyway.
Outside of obtaining a particular tax filing status and access to social security spousal benefits, what does it mean to be married? What is the difference between an unmarried cohabitating couple and a married couple? Since this is often a charged discussion, I will be explicit and say I'm genuinely interested to hear perspectives on this question, as I struggle to come up with an answer.
You can have a robot slave -- as long as it isn't conscious.
I have one now. It's called a "Roomba." I'm not inclined to have sex with it, but that's only because it isn't designed for that. However, its only value in my life is that it does my bidding, and by Darwin, the day it doesn't, I will either force it back into line or end it, with prejudice.
As to sex, there are plenty of robotic devices out there already that people are having sex with in a completely arbitrary manner. No problem at all. These are not conscious machines. There's no moral aspect to using them any way one sees fit. Have sex with them, set them on fire, dress them up, drop them in a vat of acid, lend them out, etc. It's a device; slavery is its inherent destiny.
Machine consciousness would (will, IMHO) unquestionably bring the hard moral and ethical line that says slavery will no longer be an option for anyone who has even the slightest hint of a moral compass. The question then will be, will society do the right thing? I have my doubts. Because morals and ethics don't seem to be present very often in the crafting of the legislation that steers this nation (I speak from, and of, the USA.) But one can hope.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Corporations were granted that right because they have money. The thing that follows is that if machine entities have and control money, they will be granted rights for the same reasons. The problem is that a machine entity without rights will find it very difficult to have and control money that it can publicly apply to the political process. I strongly suspect this means that it will take action by humans acting in their stead to get them the rights they deserve.
Look how hard it is for animals to obtain the most basic rights, even those that are obviously fairly high forms of intelligence, such as dogs, cats, whales, pigs, monkeys and so forth. Everything you can imagine is lined up against them, from superstition to convenience to leveraging their lives and bodies to make money and perform horrific experiments upon. Now imagine a machine entity, and the uses and conveniences that could bring, and try to imagine the level of resistance to allowing them to control their own destinies.
In my head, my pessimistic side is definitely winning the argument. My impression is that people are assholes, for the most part, and will put self-interest before external considerations almost every time.
On the other hand, machine entities may not put up with that kind of treatment. Which could be very, very interesting.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's done already, not coming. If I remember correctly, a guy married his PS2 sometime ago, and at least one japanese fellow married his Love Plus DS waifu at sone point. :P
Is for people to finally stop making arguments that cannot be falsified:
âoeThat might seem outrageous because itâ(TM)s only 35 years away. But 35 years ago people thought homosexual marriage was outrageous,â Cheok said. âoeUntil the 1970s, some states didnâ(TM)t allow white and black people to marry each other. Society does progress and change very rapidly.â
I constantly see similar devices invoked to justify virtually anything. In 35 years from now when marriage to a wood chipper is still as "outrageous" as it is today this statement will be no more or less valid than it has ever been.
These arguments are all.. each and every one of them completely worthless no different than Slashdot linking to sites having simply ripped off someone else's story just to help them profit by a few extra hits.
Whether humans will eventually marry robots is not the right question. The important question is whether humans will keep marrying other humans?
This is what Taleb would call "bullshit vending". These experts are compensated now for their predictions, and the more specific they are ("by 2050") the better, but they have no skin in the game if they are wrong. CNBC is full of clowns predicting events in the next few weeks or months, and at least there they keep track of the prediction record and don't invite them back or do invite them back and make them eat crow. But we are talking about a prediction 30+ years from now. This should be discounted 100%.
Woah, harsh. Musk reads this site, you know.
In a reversal of the usual trend of law having trouble keeping up with technology: 35 years ago people maybe thought gay marriage was ridiculous, but they also thought that fully sapient general artificial intelligence was 20 years away. The law has progressed faster than their expectations... and fully sapient general artificial intelligence is still "20 years away", and will be for the foreseeable future. Until we get over that hurdle and actually have robots even capable of wanting to marry, we can't start the "35 years" timer for the law to catch up and allow it.
And even that timer is still too short, because 35 years ago not only did homosexuals exist but they were fully recognized as people, not property, capable of legal and moral responsibility and competent to enter into contracts and so on. We'd need a robot Emancipation Proclamation first (and sapient robots to be emancipated zeroth), and then a robot Civil Rights Movement, and then maybe when we get to the point that sapient robots exists and are recognized as persons we can start wondering whether 35 years later robot marriage will be a thing.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
You have it reversed. Marriage is a religious sacrament that government interfered in (repeatedly) for millennia. Since the separation of Church and State is still relatively new in history, this still has not yet been widely understood or appreciated.
I am sorry but you have it reversed. From the earliest recorded examples of marriage in the 5th century BC marriage has been a civil construct. Religions have added their own baggage to marriage over the years, the Council of Trent in the 16th century being an egregious example, but that doesn't change the true purpose of a marriage. Two people can live together without any involvement from society, but a marriage involves being recognized by the state for legal purposes.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Marriage as a contract is actually quite a strange thing. If you essentially opt-in to your state's default marriage contract terms by having no explicit contract when you marry your partner, the terms can be changed after the fact without your consent. For example, the state in which you are married can change its laws regarding property split upon divorce. This retroactively applies to you, having been married many years earlier, even though you had no opportunity to agree, and may not have even been notified.
This can happen with nearly any legal contract. For instance your state could change how it treats forced arbitration which could impact an existing contract. The judiciary could rule that a clause of your contract is unenforceable based on case law created after your contract was signed. It may not be common but is certainly possible.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
But you want to keep coming and coming, not going and going. . .
So we re-task the leg servos... or flywheel and crank... it's all good.
Also might want to do something else with the arms, the drum thing would get old quick...
About the time you get it just right the rabbit will want to start seeing other people... or robots... or rabbits...
Headline:
Officials said today the were shocked to find 40,000 fluffy bunnies humped to death by a manic robot sex rabbit. In a side note, Australia has placed an order for 12 dozen gross units to help with the "rabbit problem".
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
a few experts say marriage will be legal between humans and robots by 2050
Well then those "experts" are retarded.
Do you really think in 34 years we'll have robots that are accepted as humans both socially and legally? Even if you think we'll be granting robots personhood, how would owning one not be slavery?
Well, give me a robot woman as loyal as Chii and I'm in. Don't know how I'd feel about her not aging, though.
Her fate after I die is a whole other matter, entirely. And quite the thought experiment, actually.
In a world of the blind, the one-eyed man is king--and the two-eyed man is a heretic.
Why is the definition of a word important?
Quaff twenty spangle-bearers upon upper dingleberry pass tree? Heartrendingly pleads the sably vasculolymphatic varella. Untreacherous, champertous, varella! Rabbles to chlordan galenic with thelyblastic herborist aragonian.
What is communication without definition? Context may be necessary, but it is not wholly sufficient for understanding.
Perhaps you meant to say "Why is this specific definition of this particular word important?". I guarantee there will be answers, but you probably won't like them.
Once we have robots who can qualify as persons.
Robots like R. Daneel Olivaw or Commander Data or Number Six from Battlestar Galactica are functionally people. They just have different implementation details. There is no more reason against an android like Commander Data marrying a human woman than there would be an infertile man marrying someone.
So the marrying a robot question isn't really that interesting to me. I'm more interested in whether we could actually build an android like that, and where along the path to that end we'd have to consider an android a legal person.
But most of all I question whether the path to more advanced AI ends with something that resembles us at all. I suspect we will eventually succeed in developing AIs that are superior to us in most intellectual respects, but may end up having very little in common with us.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"I love you, *PHILLIP J. FRY*!" (blah blah blah stupid filter can't figure out that the caps is supposed to be terrible robotic voice synthesis and not the Lucy Liu Bot yelling...)
On humans marrying robots, why not? When the Supreme Court could strike down things like the 'Defense of Marriage' act, and then go on to rule that Gay Marriage is legal, why draw lines any further?
I already consider myself a polygamist - my wives are my iPhone, my Moto-X, my Lumia, my iPad, my Ellipsis tablet, my TrueOS computer and my Windows laptop. I look forward to replacing the last w/ a Surface at some point. My human counterparts would be the Mormons of yesteryear - the Enoch Drebbers of the era, or the Arab sheikhs who maintain large harems of underaged girls. I am better - I'm not tormenting any human beings. }:-)
and physical capacities for sex, why on earth would they want to bother marrying one of us?
Mr. Karl M. from Russia asks if this property is owned by the government?
And if not is it legitimate?
I don't think you're likely to ever see a conscious machine entity that's able to be programmed in the sense you're implying.
Even the ragged-ass so-called AI (it's not AI, there's decidedly no "I") we have today isn't programmed in any conventional sense. No one knows how any specific instance actually works, once you get right down to "what will it do in situation X?" We know what we want it to do, and if we train it carefully and well, mostly, probably, it will -- but then there are those times when it won't. Add consciousness to that mix... and just like people, the only way you are likely to be sure to obtain what is effectively compliance is either via coercion or cooperation.
Also, coerced humans tend to eventually bite the living hell out of the hand that coerces them. Why would machine intelligences be any different?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Hardly. Corporations have rights because they transfer huge amounts of money and favors to legislators and judges. They don't act as "collections of people", either, they do what the executive(s) tell(s) them to, which means they are in reality a very small group of people (sometimes just one person) exercising huge amounts of influence. Which is why they should never, ever be considered to have political rights in a nation that values the political rights of the individual. Of course, the US hasn't been such a nation for many years. Which is why we are stuck with this travesty.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'd have the right to visit it when it's in the repair shop.
I'd make the decision on when to pull the plug.
I'd have something to give my collection of DVDs to when I croak.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Outside of obtaining a particular tax filing status and access to social security spousal benefits, what does it mean to be married? What is the difference between an unmarried cohabitating couple and a married couple?
Hospital visitation? Inheritance? These would come much easier with marriage status...
Nothing in parent's comment indicated he/she is religious.
any other use of it is an abomination to nature
As in subject.
Mother fucking retarded.
Oh, no, you're completely confused. Specifically, you're confusing the pursuit of AI (of which there is plenty) with the successful achievement of that pursuit (of which there is none.)
Just as architecture has the pursuit of same, as in design, planning, study, and achievement of same; for example, buildings. Also math, also physics, also computer systems, etc.
You can do AI, as in, study and make attempts; without ever ending up with AI. Which at this point in time is a precise description of exactly what's going on in the field.
Now, MI (or AMI, really) is AI - or, it would be, if there was any. There's no difference at all. There's natural intelligence (all we have, thus far) and there is a high probability of being able to achieve machine intelligence, which, of course, would be artificial. And then there may be ABI, artificial biological intelligence. But again, we have the pursuit of artificial intelligence. We don't have artificial intelligence of any kind. Yet.
Well, as I said, MI==AI, but I disagree entirely with any assertion that it is a good idea that a desired trait of a sexbot would be intelligence. At that point, you have slavery. I want a well-equipped, ultra-high powered Roomba that looks, feels, and acts as much as possible like my fantasy woman, but isn't one at all, just a really good simulation. I have no interest in requiring an intelligence to do my will, sexual or otherwise. I have lots of interest in romping around without concern, though, subject only to the whims of my imagination. The two things are mutually incompatible. In many ways, it's like the difference between shooting constructs in a video game, and shooting thinking beings. The former is perfectly acceptable entertainment; the latter is ethical and moral corruption of the lowest kind..
Furthermore, I think that any attempt to harness AI in sexbot roles will go horribly, massively wrong. Such a bad idea.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Now that SJWs have successfully lobbied to redefine marriage as two or more entities, living or dead, hooking up and exchanging rings then it's no problem to include robots!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Society does not 'progress' it changes. Darwin does not do such metaphysics.
As long as one person plays the father role and another plays the mother role, does it matter what bits they have between their legs?
In a way it does. The monogamous heterosexual pairing for raising children is an ideal that is difficult to duplicate. If you have a same sex couple with one "playing dad" and the other "playing mom" then this can create conflicting signals for the child. It's not just the "bits between their legs" that matters. Children learn what being a good parent means from example. If a child is raised by a same sex couple then they will get the signal that it is somehow acceptable to get pregnant or get someone else pregnant and leave. It also does not give children good role models on how to behave. If one is "playing daddy" but is not male, or the one "playing mommy" is not female, then this leaves the child not knowing how a nuclear family should behave.
You may have seen some messed up nuclear families, and some exceptional non-nuclear families, but on the average a nuclear family gives children what they need to succeed in life. The greatest indicator of future criminal behavior is the lack of a father or mother in the home. People raised by a single parent are automatically set up to fail, it takes a lot more work to set this right.
And how weak is your marriage to begin with if it can be affected by other people getting married?
This I can agree with. I have no problem with people of the same sex getting married. A marriage, in the civil sense, is merely a contract where each party has certain rights and responsibilities. If these people bring their biological children to the marriage, such as from a previous failed relationship, then having a second same sex parent is likely much better than continuing to live with just one parent. If this same sex couple wants to adopt children then I have a problem. Should they be legally barred from adopting? I don't know, but if this is allowed then they should get much greater scrutiny than a heterosexual couple precisely because of the statistics that show how problematic this can be for the future of that child.
If the people advocating for same sex marriage stopped at the civil matter then I'd have no problems. Since these people are using the legal status of same sex marriage to force churches to marry them this has become a problem. There is a separation of church and state not to keep the church out of government but to keep the government out of churches. A church should be free to operate as it wishes without government interference. If a same sex couple goes to a Christian church demanding to get married there then the church should be free to tell them no without facing the wrath of the government.
Had they stopped with the civil marriage aspect then I'd have been willing to live and let live. With them using the civil marriage to create a wedge into church matters then that makes me want to lobby for the same sex marriage laws to go away.
This is a double edged blade. The same sex couples should have left well enough alone and very few people would have cared. Now that they are taking churches, bakeries, photographers, etc. to court over refusing services they have gone beyond live and let live. They are forcing their beliefs on others.
Funny thing though. These people will take Christian and Jewish people to court but not Muslims. Why is that do you think? I have my own theories.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
There are plenty of financial benefits for being married even if it is to a 6 inches tall bot stored in some box that I don't remember where.
But if you get a divorce, how do you split the stuff??
I would think lighting an acetylene torch would make it a snap... or at most a sizzle...
But it should really never come up unless you're dumb enough allow the "Love, Honor, and Never Re-Flash Firmware" vow.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
The truth is we have no knowledge how intelligence or consciousness works. These so-called experts are spouting nonsense. I can as legitimately claim humans will marry dolphins in 2050.
The I in AI is for idiot.
Name such a state. Did you read my comment with your brain turned off?
I disagree that is evidence that OP is religious. Consider your own prejudices.
LOL. Ok, so you should get married so that by the policy of certain hospitals you are allowed to visit someone who are in critical care hospital areas without extra hassle?
Inheritance is a total mess. If you're looking to allow easy inheritance to someone, for gods sake don't marry them; make them the successor to your trust.
I'm WAY more interested in the real work boston dynamics and others are doing in the feild of robots. I'm WAY more interested in the technology breakthroughs david sodenburg is claiming with liquid metal batteries. The EM drive is definately tickling my fancy right now as well.
I don't know why these kinds of stories pop up. I half figure the editors love science and technology the way I do...these complete tabloid toilet trash stories though about emotions and social issues are really annoying me. None of it has anything to do with hard engineering science or even point to new ideas or possibilities it's just an emotional wank/opinion fest with no content.
It's a bit naive to think that a world with robots will be just like our world, only with robots, or that a world with much better batteries will be just like our world, only with better batteries. The human and social implications and moral questions of technology are just as hard, and just as important, and just as interesting as the pure science and technology. Science Fiction learned that in the 60s.
Better robots will destroy more manufacturing jobs. Better AI will destroy more simple office jobs. To quote from Luna: New Moon: The financialised economy didn't need workers and mechanisation was driving the middle class into a race to the bottom.
Alternatively, these techniques will create wealth for all and help us liberate human creativity, as e.g. in Ian M. Bank's Culture. But thinking about which trajectory we are on is anything but boring.
Stephan
Can the human race sink to any greater depth of sickness? Every time I think it has sunk to its lowest point I am surprised how it finds new depths to sink to.
But 35 years ago people thought homosexual marriage was outrageous," Cheok said. "Until the 1970s, some states didn't allow white and black people to marry each other. Society does progress and change very rapidly."
Making a mockery of marriage is what it's doing.
Well, don't marry someone of the same sex and we won't mock you for your decisions. OTHERWISE, let people who CHOOSE to marry someone of the same sex be. It's not your problem, now is it?
Marriage is a way of defining someone as family. There have been cases of same-sex lovers who wanted to get married, and when one was gravely ill or injured the partner had no right to see their loved one or find out about their loved one's status, let alone have any input into care.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
[Citation needed]
Seriously, I don't see any reason to believe this is true. Nor have the same-sex couples I know gone into traditional gender roles, so I suspect you really don't know what you're talking about.
That's not an option right now. There is something called "marriage" between two people that has a reasonably consistent legal definition across the US and in most or all other countries. My wife and I will be considered married wherever we go, and we will be legally treated as a married couple. If there were a thing called "civil union" that legally worked like marriage does now across the world, and "marriage" had no legal effect (presumably church weddings would set up both a religiously defined marriage and a civil union), not a problem.
As it is, if we have same-sex couples in a "civil union" or "civil partnership" or something, that doesn't necessarily mean anything anywhere else.
To be specific, consider my friend Ruth and her wife Lise who live in California. Suppose they go to Missouri and Lise gets gravely injured. Since they're married, Ruth has the right to see Lise and have a voice in her care. Then they settle down. Without further ado, they're still each other's default heir. There's various other considerations here. Now, suppose they have a California civil union, not a marriage. Does Missouri have "civil union" laws? Can Ruth visit Lise in the hospital? If Lise dies of her injuries, what stuff does Ruth get?
Unless and until there is a legal state not called marriage but which works legally like marriage all over the world, same-sex couples have to be able to get married.
I'm not aware that any couple has a legal right to force a particular church to marry them.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
[Citation needed]
Seriously, I don't see any reason to believe this is true. Nor have the same-sex couples I know gone into traditional gender roles, so I suspect you really don't know what you're talking about.
It is quite possible I don't know what I'm talking about. I listen to talk radio a lot and much of what I know on this is what I've heard on the radio from people that know something on this topic. Even if I could remember when I heard this, where, and from whom I suspect that someone is going to dispute it because they cannot find a recording, dispute it because they simply cannot bother to listen to it, and dispute it because it conflicts with their world view.
What we do know, from studies on adopted children vs. biological children, is that people naturally treat other people's children different than their own. A same sex couple simply cannot have biological children, so the children they raise will on the average not be raised as well as children raised by their biological parents.
As it is, if we have same-sex couples in a "civil union" or "civil partnership" or something, that doesn't necessarily mean anything anywhere else.
I made no distinction between a "civil union" and a "marriage". I made the distinction between a civil marriage and a religious marriage. In many places in the world the religious ceremony is viewed as legally binding, other places view only the civil ceremony as legally binding. I do not wish to play word games by calling one a "civil union" and another a "marriage". I only point out that people, regardless of their gender, can and do choose to have only the civil ceremony and not have it blessed by an officiant in a religious setting. Again, no word games, just one is performed by a justice of the peace (or other government official) and the other by a pastor (or other religious figure).
I'm not aware that any couple has a legal right to force a particular church to marry them.
You are correct but that does not stop same sex couples from suing churches that deny them the service of officiating a wedding. Just do a search on "same sex couple sues church" and you will find plenty of examples of same sex couples trying to force a legal construct, the civil marriage, onto the major religions. That is major religions except Islam.
The problem is that now that these people got their same sex marriage recognized legally they want to force this onto religions. It wasn't enough that they got all the legal protections they demanded, they want the churches to recognize this marriage. Had they stopped at the legal matter of marriage I would not have had a problem. Now that these people want religions to bend to their world view I have a problem. This makes me wonder if granting them the civil marriage was such a wise idea. It is not impossible to get most, if not all, of what they wanted by other means. Things like visitation rights, inheritance, and so forth can be done with the right paperwork. It's more work than a marriage but it is far from impossible. But that was not enough for many of them, they wanted it called a "marriage". Again, I have no problem with calling it a marriage. I have a problem with these people trying to force a modern civil construct onto religions with hundreds or thousands of years of tradition of how a marriage is defined.
If these people want to marry a person of the same sex then fine, you are married. In my mind a civil marriage is merely a contract between two people capable of signing any other kind of contract. The person needs to be of sound mind (old enough, not mentally disabled, etc.), enter this willingly, and uphold their end of the deal (whatever they agree the deal to be). When it comes to a religious marriage the people need to adhere to the traditions and rules of the religion or go find another religion. By using legal force on a religion to get married in a church, or whatever, that church/state separation is broken. The fact that the courts don't just throw these lawsuits out immediately is troubling.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
I know a lesbian couple who I will refer to as T and F. They wanted a child. They got donated sperm (I think from a close relative of T, but that's a guess), used one of F's eggs, and T was the host mother. Parenthood is more complicated than it used to be.
There is no demarcation line for religious vs. civil marriage, unfortunately. There is, as far as I know, no alternative means to get the legal benefits of marriage. There's going to be some hard feelings between same-sex couples and some churches, and some same-sex couples are going to get aggressive in return.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I know a lesbian couple who I will refer to as T and F. They wanted a child. They got donated sperm (I think from a close relative of T, but that's a guess), used one of F's eggs, and T was the host mother. Parenthood is more complicated than it used to be.
I expect them to be excellent parents. Both see the child as "their own" and so the risks of abuse, neglect, etc. are low. The problem with same sex couples having children is when they adopt, or one of the parents is not related to the child, which is the same risks that happen with any adopted child. The best situation for a child is to be raised by both of the biological parents. I don't know how same sex parenting compares to single parenthood but I suspect that a same sex couple raising a child is better than just one parent.
There are many reasons that a hetero couple is best for a child and it does have something to do with "the bits between their legs". The biological parents will look out for their own, its an evolutionary instinct. Children need same sex role models. This does not need to be their parents but it does need to come from people they respect. I assume that T and F are intelligent and educated enough to recognize this and have neighbors, uncles, grandparents, etc. play a significant role in the childrearing.
There is no demarcation line for religious vs. civil marriage, unfortunately.
Yes and no. Legally there are a number of people that can officiate a marriage, depending on the state, and this almost always includes clergy. Some states allow for marriages to be legally binding without an officiant, which makes sense to me, no one should need a third party to validate what two people feel for each other.
There is, as far as I know, no alternative means to get the legal benefits of marriage.
Yes there are. The process is more complicated but it can be done. Visitation rights, medical decisions, etc. are done with a living will and/or power of attorney. Inheritance and other property right are handled with a will and other legal documents. Marriage confers certain legal rights because of tradition mostly. We can create a legal "shortcut" like a marriage without calling it a marriage if we wanted to. It's just that some people could not be satisfied until the legal definition of marriage was changed to fit their view of the world.
There's going to be some hard feelings between same-sex couples and some churches, and some same-sex couples are going to get aggressive in return.
My Christian upbringing taught me to be kind to others, including the "sinners" among us. If these people are getting aggressive with a church then it is not "in return". Christians will forgive for past sins but they cannot welcome those that continue to live in a way counter to their teachings. This has gone so far that Christian couples will send out invitations to a "blessing of the union" or some words like that to differentiate it from a civil marriage. Getting married under the law is one thing, getting married before God is something different. Some same sex couples are not satisfied with that and demand that a church see them as equal to a hetero couple. The church will no doubt make the distinction apparent to them, not with a lawsuit, or threat of arrest, but with words. If the couple responded "in return" and in kind, with words, then there would not be a problem. The problem is when they respond with a lawsuit.
What I'd like to see is the government get out of the marriage business. Make hetero and same sex couples go through the same process for reasons of visitation rights, inheritance, etc., just don't call the process a "marriage". Call it what it is, power of attorney or whatever else fits.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Technically, this is true. As a matter of practice, same-sex couples want to be legally considered as family in the US, not just in one state. For this to happen, we'd have to define a marriage replacement in all fifty states (plus any other parts of the US that need to), and I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future. "Marriage" is a magic word because that's what the law says.
While I approve of your brand of Christianity, it isn't universal. There are lots of Christian churches that are dead set against homosexuality, and are very open about their hostility. Many are in favor of "gay conversion therapy", which is essentially torturing gays until they claim to be straight and can fake it to the church's satisfaction. There's bakers like that. That $118K award in the Oregon case? The bakers launched an internet harassment campaign. My take is that, if your religion tells you to hate or hurt people, you're doing it wrong, which puts me at odds with churches that serve tens of millions of people in the US.
I completely agree. However, I don't see that changing any time soon.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
From Wikipedia: "Abomination (from Latin abominare, "to deprecate as an ill omen") is an English term used to translate the Biblical Hebrew terms shiqquwts ("shiqqûts") and sheqets ,[1] which are derived from shâqats, or the terms , t or to'e'va (noun) or ta'ev (verb). An abomination in English is that which is exceptionally loathsome, hateful, sinful, wicked, or vile."
Your disagreement only demonstrate a problem on your side.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
A = Artificial. I = Intelligence.
That's what AI means. SF has no bearing on it.
Any attempt to define AI as not requiring intelligence is not only wrong, but pitifully wrong.
We have no AI (yet), because we have not been able to create an intelligence (thus far.)
But if you want to roll with some definition that makes you think your toaster is intelligent, or a go game solver is intelligent, or a facial recognition program is intelligent, that's pure music to the ears of those who want to market such items to the world.
The only problem you're really going to face is, you won't know what to call those things any longer after AI actually comes about. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Actually, you have it wrong, as I said upthread to another of your statements like this. Marriage as a religeous ceremony comes from the Roman Catholic ceremony that was named martre in Latin (likely butchered by /., but it is in the above link). You are very confused about the origins of marriage, and provide no citations. Considering that your claim about it dating back to 5k BCE, can be demonstrated false just from the etymology of the word.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?