Gives a whole new meaning to "Blade Runner"

Here's a fun headline: "In 2050, your lover may be a...robot"

According to this article, robot technology will be advanced enough in the next 40 years to provide machines that can have emotional relationships with humans. Fully functioning and advanced sex robots should be available in 10 years...if that's more your bag. The person making this claim thinks this will be a good thing for people with psycho-social disorders, or those that are ugly. Although it will be feasible to build free will into the robot so that the possibility exists that even a robot will reject your ugly, socially retarded ass just like the real people do.

Anyone who has dabbled in the world of relationships is going to have a flicker of interest in this. A fully functioning robot who loves me and can be traded in or adjusted any time? SWEET. Teach it to vacuum and do dishes and I might be sold baby. This all brings up a whole host of other questions. If the robot is that advanced, does it have rights? Can you marry your robot? Can you have a poly-robotic lifestyle? If you divorce your robot, are you responsible for its upkeep or do you just get to shut it off?

Mostly though, I think the whole thing is really sad. Robot technology is certainly really cool, but shouldn't we be working towards human compatibility before we introduce the Wonder Lover 3000? Not to perpetuate stereotypes, but do we really want a room full of nerds building an entity to love us? What if the robots become self-aware and bring down the hell of Sky Net on us? Will we need to hire Harrison Ford to eliminate stray replicants? Doesn't perfection ultimately get boring?

And besides, I never really ever figured out how to program my VCR.