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By Alix Rijckaert
MAASTRICHT: Romantic human-robot relationships
are no longer the stuff of science fiction—researchers expect them
to become reality within four decades.
And they do not mean simply, mechanical sex.
“I am talking about loving relationships about
40 years from now,” David Levy, author of the book “Love + sex
with robots,” told Agence France-Presse at an international
conference held last week at the University of Maastricht in the
south-east of the country.
“ . . . when there are robots that have also
emotions, personality, consciousness. They can talk to you, they can
make you laugh. They can . . . say they love you just like a human
would say ‘I love you’, and say it as though they mean it . . .
“
Robots as sex toys should already be on the
market within five years, predicted Levy, “a sort of an upgrade of
the sex dolls on sale now.”
These would have electronic speech and sensors
that make them utter “nice sounds” when a human caresses their
“erogenous zones.”
But to build robots as real partners would take
a bit longer, with conversation skills being the main obstacle for
developers.
Scientists were working on artificial
personality, emotion and consciousness, said Levy, and some robots
already appear lifelike.
“But for loving relationships—that is
something completely different. In loving relationships there are
many more things that are important. And the most difficult of all
is conversation.
“You want your robot to be able to talk to you
about what is interesting to you. You want a partner who has some
similar interest to you, who talks to you in a manner that pleases
you, who has a similar sense of humor to you.”
Levy’s bombshell thesis, whose publication has
had a ripple-effect way beyond the scientific community, gives rise
to a number of complicated ethical and relationship questions.
British scholar Dylan Evans pointed out the
paradox inherent to any relationship with a robot.
“What is absolutely crucial to the sentiment
of love, is the belief that the love is neither unconditional nor
eternal.
“Robots cannot choose you, they cannot reject
you. That could become very boring, and one can imagine the human
becoming cruel against his defenseless partner,” said Evans.
A robot could conceivably be programmed with a
will of its own and the ability to reject his human partner, he
said, “but that would be a very difficult robot to sell.”
But Levy is unyielding. He is convinced it will
happen, and predicts many societal benefits.
“There are many millions of people in the
world who have nobody. They might be shy or they might have some
psychological hang-ups or psycho-sexual hang-ups, they might have
personality problems, they might be ugly . . .
“There will always be many millions of people
who cannot make normal satisfactory relationships with humans, and
for them the choice is not: ‘would I prefer a relationship with a
human or would I prefer a relationship with a robot?’—the choice
is no relationship at all or a relationship with a robot.”
They might even become human-to-human
relationship savers, he predicted.
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