Human/Robot Marriage: The Next Frontier in Legal Controversy

COMMENTARY | The Huffington Post has a story that speculates that in the future, love and even marriage will be possible between humans and robots. A response in CNS News suggests that the idea is more than a little gross and immoral.

From the 1930s Lester Del Rey story "Helen O'Loy" to the episode in "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in which Tasha Yar seduces Commander Data, the android who is "fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques" sex and romantic relationships between humans and artificial life forms have been the stuff of science fiction. The increasing sophistication of sex dolls, which now can mimic movement and even speech, has apparently brought that speculation into the real world.

Here is the bottom line: Until a humanoid robot becomes artificially intelligent and self-aware, love and marriage between it and a human would be an exercise in self-delusion on the part of the latter. A robot, especially one designed for providing the lonely and socially awkward pleasure, can no more provide informed consent for marriage than a toaster. Until one's sexbot can pass a Turing test in which its responses are indistinguishable from that of a human, all it can be is an expensive, albeit compliant prostitute.

The Huffington Post story suggests that just as we are now going through a controversy over same sex marriage today, the next legal frontier will be marriage between carbon-based life forms and silicon-based life forms. That will only be true, of course, when and if robots can become legal humans.

But then, what will be the point? The advantage of owning a sexbot is that it has no will of its own. One can do anything one likes with it without fear of objection. If the sexbot suddenly becomes self-aware and develops a will of its own, then its purpose is defeated. Having a relationship with such a being is pretty much like having one with a human being, with its wonder and perils.

In that eventuality, the legal frontier may not be human/robot marriage. It will be human/robot divorce. That is a prospect that makes one shudder.

Sources: Can Loving a Robot Lead to Divorce? Vicki Larson, Huffington Post, Dec 20, 2011

HuffPost 'Reimagines' Marriage - To Include Sexbots, Paul Wilson, CNS News, Dec 22, 2011

Helen O'Loy, Lester DelRey, Google Books

The Naked Now, Star Trek: The Next Generation, TV.Rage