The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.
David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.
Thats just lovely...
Don't men have it hard enough already, trying to impress women. Now we have to contend with a machine?!
Seems like everywhere I go
The more I see
the less I know-Michael Franti
The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.
David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, "Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners," that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.
Thats just lovely...
Don't men have it hard enough already, trying to impress women. Now we have to contend with a machine?!
There's another angle to this. The robots will marry
men. Can we be sure they will want to? Here's what machines say about us!
From the internet:
Subject: Machines Discuss if Meat Could Be Sentient
>Imagine if you will... the leader of the fifth invader force speaking to the commander in chief...
>
>"They're made out of meat."
>"Meat?"
>"Meat. They're made out of meat."
>"Meat?"
>"There's no doubt about it. We picked several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars."
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
>"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
>"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
>"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
>"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in the sector and they're made out of meat."
>"Maybe they're like the Orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
>
>"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take too long. Do you have any idea the life span of meat?"
>"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the Weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
>"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads like the Weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
>"No brain?"
>"Oh, there is a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat!"
>"So... what does the thinking?"
>"You're not understanding, are you? The brain does the thinking. The meat."
>"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
>"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you getting the picture?"
>"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
>"Finally, Yes. They are indeed made out meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
>"So what does the meat have in mind?"
>"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the universe, contact other sentients, swap ideas and information. The usual."
>"We're supposed to talk to meat?"
>"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio.' Hello. Anyone out there? Anyone home?' That sort of thing."
>"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
>"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
>"I thought you just told me they used radio."
>"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
>"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
>"Officially or unofficially?"
>"Both."
>"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in the quadrant, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
>"I was hoping you would say that."
>"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
>"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say?" `Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
>"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
>"So we just pretend there's no one home in the universe."
>"That's it."
>"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you have probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
>"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
>
>"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream!
>"And we can mark this sector unoccupied."
>"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others?
>Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
>"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen core cluster intelligence in a class nine star in G445 zone. Was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
>"They always come around."
>"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the universe would be if one were all alone."
>
>- Have a nice day
>****************************************************
Tell us something.: "Tell us something" hits me a bit like someone asking me to tell a joke. I can always think of a hundred of them until someone asks me for one. You know how it is. Right now, I can't think of "something" to tell you. But I have to use at least 100 characters to inform you of that.
I agreed for a minute, and then I thought If the robots have no prior knowledge of animal life, then where did they even get a concept of meat? If meat is nothing but animal, no longer living, then you must have previously observed animals as sentient beings.
Both of these are ridiculously old sci-fi concepts, both the one about humans marrying androids, and non-biological sentient entities being grossed out at our corporeal nature. I'm not sure how these could be dredged up and considered "new" ideas.
djm
I'd rather be atop the foothills than beneath them.
Steamwalker wrote:Sign me up for the first fembot to roll off the production lines.
Didn't Hanson have a hit song of that?
You have so many relationships in this life,
But only ones with androids last.
You go through all the human strife,
Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast.
Oh yeah. They're gone so fast. yeah yeah yeah
Fembot, ba dubi bot ba do bot,
Ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do. yeah yeah,
Fembot, ba dubi bot ba do bot,
Ba dubi dop ba do bop,
Ba dubi dop ba do
Oh yeah, if they're not a Fembot they're gone. Yeah.
