I just read the most interesting, if not slightly disturving article on a how a robot enthusiast and researcher as well as inventor has predicted that, unequivocally, he thinks that by the year 2050 humans will be having sex with and marrying robots that look, feel and act much like real humans do.  Sounds like something from a science fiction movie, like oh say, Blade Runner, which I just happened to watch a few weeks ago. 

In the movie, Harrison Ford’s character, a bounty hunter of rogue robots that have run wild and taken on too many human characteristics and become unstable, falls in love with Sean Young’s character, Rachel, who is a replicant (robot) and doesn’t know it.  She is programmed to become more and more human over time, and inevitable, Harrison Ford falls in love with her character even though he knows she is a replicant and their love is taboo. 

The researcher who claims he knows that this marriage and sex with robots thing will come in the relative near future even thinks that it may come sooner than 2050, and he is convinced that it will definitely happen - that is, that people will fall in love with and become emotionally attached to robots that replicate people.  He says he predicts that the first state to legalize marriage between a man or woman and a robot will be Massachusetts, probably since it is more liberal and legalized gay marriage. 

He said that the ethical and moral questions may be far reaching though.  Perhaps some may view this as a perversion of human nature and the human form, or consider sex with a robot to be a perversion and even ungodly in the eyes of religion, as well as implications that sex and marriage and relationships with robots could lead to unhealthy shifts in humanity.  There are other views though, that this relationship between humans and robots could be a good thing. 

It could provide companionship for those that feel lonely and feel they have nothing to offer or are too afraid to date the opposite sex.  It could also provide an outlet for people without getting diseases or cheating on their partners for sex outside a relationship.  Heck, it could even lessen the need to for prostitution.  Those are only a few possibilities, but of course there are still major moral and ethical issues that many will have with this development.  Thoughts?  I’m not sure what I think.  I think it’s kind of scary.