Should I have let my five year old daughter marry our robot?

[shosta]

by zoltan istvan

I pride myself on being open-minded. I am a transhumanist, and our culture pushes us to use science and technology to always want to be more than we are. My friends do everything from injecting themselves with self-created genetic treatments to volunteer for brain implants that will integrate artificial intelligence (AI). But when my five-year-old daughter asked to marry our four-foot tall robot, even I was a little wary.

My wife and I set up a mock wedding and filmed it. It was all good fun until my wife asked how I’d feel if my daughter wanted to do this as an adult with a robot she loved.

Kids do lots of crazy things with their imaginative minds that have little bearing on the future. Playing make-believe has been a cornerstone of childhood for millions of kids for generations. But no generation can claim their kids were adept at using YouTube before they reached 12 months of age, as both my kids were.

Even if a robot could be my daughter’s intellectual equal, and love and take care of her someday as spouses do, there’d be no chance for biological offspring from the robot. This leaves me somewhat sad and empty. Naturally, there are many reasons my daughter might not have children, but marrying a robot to some extent guarantees that the traditional concept of human procreation is all but impossible. These feelings and thoughts of mine worry me, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s correct to feel this way. I worry I’m being closed-minded and even a bigot.

If she chooses as an adult to marry anyone or anything — so long as she has rationally and deeply thought all of it through — then I want to support her choices. Even if in the future her spouse is not of human form.

you are so brave

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[shosta]

Mr Istvan: did you know other people are already trailblazing this new frontier of human rights?

[Kara]

That guy I could have voted for but didn't!

[Kara]

This reminds me, there was a more sophisticated Alexa thing that tried to be personable that was shut down recently because that sweet money laundering venture capital dried up. People were penning sad posts about the death of a robot.

Jibo I think it was?

[Tasty]

Not a good idea.

[benjipwns]

he was running for the Libertarian Party presidential nomination but dropped out to rebuild his defunct Transhumanist Party

I've heard his sci-fi novel is actually pretty decent unlike most thinly veiled sci-fi polemics.

The weirdest thing about this guy actually is nobody seems to know where his money comes from. The most he's ever explained it is "real estate" but nobody knows where or anything. He seemingly has quite a bit, he tried to suggest to reason when they interviewed him that his fortune is in the hundreds of millions.

[Joe Molotov]

yes