Robots as life partners

Could this be ?

[ msnbc reports ]
Levy argues that psychologists have identified roughly a dozen basic reasons why people fall in love, "and almost all of them could apply to human-robot relationships. For instance, one thing that prompts people to fall in love are similarities in personality and knowledge, and all of this is programmable. Another reason people are more likely to fall in love is if they know the other person likes them, and that's programmable too."

In 2006, Henrik Christensen, founder of the European Robotics Research Network, predicted that people will be having sex with robots within five years, and Levy thinks that's quite likely. There are companies that already sell realistic sex dolls, "and it's just a matter of adding some electronics to them to add some vibration," he said, or endowing the robots with a few audio responses. "That's fairly primitive in terms of robotics, but the technology is already there."

[via /. ]

My Brain running wild

If this became very common wouldn't you rather have this machine as a partner and not go through all the pains that you need to go through to make a relationship work. What if it is the pain that makes the relationship that much more special.  Well then we could always go back. Its not as if these robots can take us over. So the software running on them has to clearly be some form of AI thing. So each of these machines will develop their own character. We could have small boxes like iPods called the "iSoul" which would carry the entire personality of the wife robot. We would have to buy new bodies for these Souls every new Year or so. You could take your wife's iSoul and plug it in your car. Maybe not, that sounds a bit too weird. The wireless technologies should be strong enough to access my iSoul which is docked from anywhere in the globe. So then I dont have to baby-sit and control all that iSoul does.

Hell if someone hacks into my iSoul ?? But whats the fun if I completely control the experiences that iSoul is exposed to. Maybe iSould should be able to connect to something like 2ndLifee and enrich her own experiences.

You think school kids would date each others iSouls then ? Would parents gift their kids an iSoul on their 15th birthday because the kid cant find a single decent date ?