If a young woman was allowed to marry a corporation, why can’t android lovers marry their sex robots?
The best-selling author of Love and Sex with Robots claimed that lawmakers will have to change legislation to allow robots to wed as society begins to view artificially intelligent machines in a different way.
He said: “As more and more people come to accept the concept of love and sex with robots, society as a whole will come to develop laws to govern human robot relationships.
“Restrictions that prevented Angela Vogel from obtaining a legal marriage license in Seattle will begin to fall by the wayside just as laws preventing interracial marriage did in the 1960s and same sex marriage during did in the past decade.”
And by the time there are no obstacles, the sex robots we are familiar with will become even more human-like and “kind, protecting and loving”.
But one major obstacle in the UK will be the Church, Dr Levy added.
“Religion is the reason to oppose same-sex marriage but not human-robot marriage,” he told a packed audience at the second ever Love and Sex with Robots conference in London on Tuesday.
And his comments have prompted backlash from Christians.
Priest Kara Slade, who was present as Dr David gave his speech, argued that “human relationships are not the same as chess computer programs”.
She added that Dr David Levy’s comments that “the bible does not say that you cannot marry humans” showed a total “misunderstanding of Christianity”.
But governments may actually consider the move.
In 2012 a woman was granted the right to marry a Mr. Corporate Person: a one-and-a-half-month-old business.
Seattle councillors later voided Angela Vogel’s marriage, but not before plenty of press attention.
Dr Levy said there are three requirements for robots to marry humans: consent, understanding and the capacity to make decisions – things he believes artificial intelligence is very close to.
And when it comes to divorce, the law will have to reflect that too.
The lawmakers and lawyers in robot law will have to deal with divorce, he said.
However, if you’re programming your own bot, it’s likely you can customise them to want you forever, he said.