Robot Love

and it's you. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick, and uh, you know, guys, Uh, I don't know if you if you actually saw the episode of Forward Thinking that I did for Valentine's Day, but um, you know, love was in the air. I saw it, did you, Yeah? I was. That was a fun one, talking about the concepts of romance and love, the future of it, and especially the future as it relates to artificial intelligence and robots.

So I think we should try to do our best to bring as much dignity as possible to this discussion and not let it just devolve into t he and uh, well, I mean it's it's there's a lot of there's a lot of uh, really challenging things to tackle here on multiple levels, from a technology standpoint, from a social standpoint, from a cultural standpoint. I mean, there are you know, First of all, we have to keep in mind, bottom level, there are very real people with real emotions that are

are all wrapped up in this topic. And so it's you know, we're gonna try and be respectful of everybody, but at the same time, you have to admit that some of the concepts we're talking about to the average person might seem really alien to them or even ridiculous. And and we're we're absolutely not trying to mock anyone who who has, you know, these sort of feelings exactly. I mean, it's it's we're trying, Like I said, being respectful is going to be one of those things we're

gonna try and do throughout here. That doesn't mean we're not going to make a joke here and there, because we are who we are, all of us are a little bit. But it's more about being lighthearted. We're not poking fun at anyone. Now. First of all, this is a concept that is often used in lots of science fiction. I mean, we've seen various films and stories as well as uh, you know, television series, everything that you can think of that have explored this idea of a human

person falling in love with a synthetic being. Oh yeah, it's a it's a really classic troop um. It goes back at least to Heleno Lloyd, which is a short story by one Lester del Rey or Bradberry's Marionettes, inc. From Yeah, I even go further back because if you look at at Mythology and you look at Ovid's Metamorphoses, the story of Pygmalion is very similar to kind of the stuff we're talking about, and that Pigmalion, a sculptor, builds a statue and he falls in love with his creation,

which is eventually given life by the goddess Aphrodite. And so this is not that different from what we're going to talking about. You go even further back than that. There's a weird science right, Yeah, that predates all of its metamorphoses because that was in the eighties and everything came after that, or just this year that that movie

her Spike Jones short came out yep, yep. And so there are a lot of different choices that we could you know, I actually listed one, uh making Mr Wright, which was I don't know, did you guys ever see

that movie? Okay, this is one of those movies that I just remember coming on television all the time, like in the maybe it was the late eighties or perhaps the early nineties, and it started John Malkovich as a scientist who builds a robot, and the robot's purpose is to be sent out for into the outer Solar System to do you know, uh, astronomical studies. But a woman ends up falling in love with the robot, and the

robot ends up developing emotions. It's already artificially intelligent, but now it's actually become conscious and self away, air and emotional and ultimately spoiler alert for anyone who hasn't seen this movie, which was out, you know, more than a couple of decades ago, uh, the scientist character, the human scientist ends up taking the place of the robot and goes out into outer space because he feels more at home by himself. He's the ultimate introvert, and the robot

ends up assuming the identity of the human scientist on Earth. So, uh, you know this this is one of those ideas that has been explored multiple times. Sure. We we've also on a less romantic and perhaps more straightforward level, have the example of Jude Law's character subtly named Giggolo Joe from AI Artificial Intelligence. Right, and so there we have a robot whose specific purpose, at least in the context of that film, is to be like a pleasure but something

along those lines, something that's there for physical pleasure. And in fact, you know, in the short term, that's really what we're talking about here, because we just haven't reached a point where in the artificial intelligence field we can create something as deep and compelling as a robot that

can realistically simulate emotions on a consistent basis. Yeah, I can't imagine that even the best artificial intelligence chat bought today could really make you fall in love with its personality, right right, Her is definitely a science fiction movie in that way. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't already some some people who are developing emotional connections to

human like dolls. There have been a few pretty sensationalistic documentaries, for example, about people who have married their real dolls, right, and by married, we should point out that that's there's a huge quotation marks because it's it's not legal to marry an inanimate object, um and and as and as much as these people have a emotional connection to to those to those dolls and have backstories and names and whole lives with them. They it is not a legally

sanctioned kind of relationship. And it's also when you think about it, it's it's one person fulfilling both roles, at least on an emotional level, uh, in a relationship. Because these dolls have no artificial intelligence, the ones we're talking about, I think they're just like rigid things, aren't they. Well, rigid might be the wrong one for they don't they don't talk. No, they don't talk. They don't have any

they're they're not motorized. Right, So, so you've got these, you know, any any sort of emotional involvement is something that's being developed wholly by one side of this equation. Right, there's not any sort of emotional response coming from the doll. Doesn't mean that the emotions are any less real, let's be clear about that. But it's different from the kind of relationships where we are talking about two people who

are reciprocating some sort of emotional involvement. Sure, there's one of the frequent interviewees in in these kind of documentaries is a man who calls himself Dave Kat who's married to a real doll, and and a quote from him that I found really interesting about his relationship with his his real doll wife sador And I'm not positive that that's the correct pronunciation, but but but at any rate, um, he said, a synthetic as in, a synthetic doll will

never lie to you, cheat on you, criticize you, or otherwise be disagreeable. It's rare enough to find organics who don't have something going on with them, and being able to make a partner of one is rarer still, which is tells us a lot more about him than necessarily the uh this relationship, right, I mean, it's that there might be some elements there for some people who fear having an emotional relationship for fear of any kind of rejection,

which I mean that's natural obviously. I think just about everyone has had at least one experience where they were afraid of some form of emotional rejection at some point in their lives. And so for some people that fear can be incredibly powerful, absolutely, and so maybe something like this would allow them to explore an emotional relationship that, again, to them, is just as real as any relationship I might have with another person without that that that obstacle

in the way, right. I thought it was interesting point of view of of just kind of wrapping up that that entire concept of how difficult it is sometimes to have a human partner, and that therefore this could be

a good emotional substitute for some people. It's It's also been suggested by some researchers that there was a report done out of the University of Wellington in New Zealand that robots could really help clean up the sex industry, helping solve a lot of currently existing problems like human trafficking and all kinds of s T I S. Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is one of those things where you're, you know, for some people, uh there there they may

be saying, well, now you're you're substituting one vice for another. But you know, again, this is this is really complex just because your own personal point of view that match someone else's, you know, you gotta try and distance yourself

from it. The point with Dave kat though some of those interviews, um, he can sometimes like it's it's The interviews I read were very telling to me because he would talk about the experiences he would have with his He actually has two dolls, I believe, or at least

one of the interviews that talked about the time. At the time of the interview, I think he had plans to purchase more, but had two at the time, right, So, and he would talk about how he would pose them for pictures or whatever and and or sit down with them on the couch. It didn't sound like it was um any kind of and he had invented a backstory, actually two different backstories for each of them, but it didn't sound like there was any kind of relationship there

in the traditional sense. Right. It didn't seem like he was sharing anything other than a short amount of time with them. And he was very forthcoming about, you know, what he was doing with these ships dolls. So you know, but again, for certain people, maybe that is a way of for them to get some emotional fulfillment that they would not otherwise have. It sounded to me like it was a level of companionship that he found easier to

deal with. And and you know, and I mean he he blogged that the dolls characters have online social media accounts, So so there's certainly time being spent with these um invented personalities. But now moving forward, thinking ahead about a time where we actually start seeing artificial intelligence become a component, because,

as we said, in these other cases, there's no intelligence there. Uh. And just to be clear, we don't want to take that as a necessary given in anytime soon, right No, no, no, this is saying that when it happens. But they're imagining that we do at some point reach in the incredible future, right yeah, because we do not have that. We do not have the magic artificial intelligence that's dawning right now

as far as we are aware. But there have already been people talking about when that becomes a reality and what will happen as a result, including some people who have hypothesized that in the future, maybe as early as twenty fifty, we will have a culture where it will be uh, completely acceptable for a human being to marry

a robot by people. I'm specifically talking about Dr David Levy, who is a chess master, and while he was active playing chess in various tournaments, he witnessed the growth of AI within chess tournaments and at first AI and chess was you know, serviceable. It could beat your average player, but was not good at going up against chess masters. Who would have lots of different flexible plans for changing up their game, which could really uh confuse AI chess AI.

And for a long time he just saw that it wasn't really a match for a truly confident player, but that AI got better and better, and eventually Dr Levy

began to get really interested in AI. He then pursued a pH d and his thesis was all about human robotic relationships, and he did studies on everything from the history of marriage and the cultural significance of marriage, human relationships, artificial intelligence, and eventually came to this conclusion that by twenty fifty it would be legal for humans and robots to mary. He said, it wasn't just a possibility, it

was a certainty. I mean, assuming that convincing AI is actually achievable, and that we can not only achieve it but put it in a form factor of a human humanoid robot, that it was only a matter time before someone falls in love with such a thing, and then from that point only a matter of time before it's socially acceptable and maybe you know, also legally acceptable for a human to marry a robot. Now that's an interesting idea, and there are people who very much disagree with it,

but I thought was certainly something that we should discuss. Yeah, one of the technical challenges before we get into talking about the implications of it, I think, is the idea

of this would be going beyond Turing. Right, So we talked about the Turing test previously, uh, And the basic idea behind the Turing test is can you create a robot that chats in a way that is convincingly human, that can sort of do text chat with you, uh, and say things that really get you convinced, Okay, this is a real human being and this is a true intelligence behind these words that says nothing about what you feel about that human being, only that it can convince

you that it's not a machine. And I think the leap from I think this is a real, flesh and blood human being to this is somebody that I would really like to spend a lot of time with is a big leap. A Turing computer could be a jerk. I really think that you're being a little uh, you know, I think it's actually not as big a leap as

you think it is. Yes, because we have already seen evidence of incredibly sophisticated computer programs that can analyze what you like based upon the the activities you do already and that are already shared on say a social networking site, where based upon the actions you take, someone can learn a lot about you just with a few data points.

You might think like, I don't share that much, and yet a program such as or a social networking platform like Facebook can quote unquote know a lot about you based upon your behavior. Now, if imagine that you have not only a chatbot that can realistically simulate a humans responses so that you don't know that it's uh an artificially intelligent construct on the other end of those words, but it also is able to incorporate all the things

you like and incorporate that into a conversation naturally. So now it's not just personality, but the personality that starts to share some of your same interests and passions. I could easily see someone falling in love with that. Also, I should add I met my wife online through a chat room, fell in love with my wife, met her for the first time in person after we had already been quote unquote dating online. And so to me, this

is a very realistic kind of outcome. Uh yeah, but I would say I'm sure you would acknowledge is that your wife is a wonderful human being who she's pretty good is a human being who happened to be who she was to begin with. And if you were to interact with a human being who had done extensive research and analytics on you and tailored everything they said in getting to know you with the eye towards pleasing you, that would probably make you feel weird if you were

to discover that. Let me counter that. Let's say, instead of a person to the tailors everything to seem like it pleases you, it's just a certain probabilistic approach, a certain percentage. And if it's a an intelligence that has access to essentially everybody's likes and dislikes, you could have an artificial personality that seems to have interests that are completely independent of yours. So, in other words, seems like

a fully fleshed out personality. So let's say, for example, Joe, that you uh, you happen to love hiking, but you despise smooth jazz, and this this robotic construct doesn't really care for hiking but love smooth jazz. However, there are other things that you have in common, so as you have discussions with this artificial personality, some things you find out are different from the stuff you like, which is important.

I think in relationships, you know, you know, that's another real coy of yourself, Which is why it kind of goes back to my concerns about the people who have these emotional relationships with dolls, because ultimately they are kind of having a relationship of themselves because the dolls themselves, they imbue a personality upon those dolls, right, the dolls themselves don't have a personality. So but in this case, talking about an artificial personality, I could easily see something.

It wouldn't even have to be terribly sophisticated in the

grand scheme of things that could be completely convincing. It's kind of the the argument that was introduced by Stepford Wives is kind of silly of an example as that can be, which which originally if if you've never seen either of the films, was a novel by um Ira Levin in two but okay, spoiler spoiler alert on Stepford Wives, y'all, it turns out that these that these men in this community are creating robot versions of their wives and like

idealized idealized robot versions of their wives who will be happy cooking and cleaning for them and all of that. Kind of essentially they become the subservient, always pleased, uh, never upset with their husbands, like there's there's not supposed to be any kind of conflict at home sort of stuff.

It's it's, it's and it's showing a really dark side to that very typical kind of fantasy where you're thinking about Mr. Or Mrs Wright and in your mind Mr. And Mrs Wright might be a person with whom you have perfect harmony and everything goes well, and they they're You're You're happy to you want right you Maybe maybe it's maybe in your fantasy it's also reciprocal, where you are both catering to each other's desires and fantasies and needs and wants. That that's possible and may not just

be a one sided thing. I'm not suggesting that Mr. Mrs Wright fantasy is always going to be purely selfish,

but it still is this idealized version. And the question is if you were actually able to achieve that, if in other words, if you were able to have like a tailor designed personality, whether it's an artificial intelligence chat bot or an actual robotic you know, presence, would that eventually being that you would would you be able to have like a satisfying, meaningful relationship with that artificial construct? And furthermore, would it be mentally healthy for you to

have the capacity to create a partner for yourself? Right? And one of the ethical implications I've had I've brought up and this is even before we talk about the possibility of a robot having any kind of self awareness or consciousness. Even if a robot can't, like, even if it's just running a very sophisticated program where it's simulating that here we're just talking about simulating behavior, and so to put in absolute terms, it has no experience, Like

it's having no individual experience. There is nobody who is that robot exactly? Would it Even in that case, I still find it a little troubling personally to think of the possibility of of designing one of these things and then maybe two years down the road thinking this isn't

really working out for me. I'm just gonna hit control all, delete and reprogram this robot from the ground up, give a brand new set of behaviors and personality traits and it'll be like I have a whole new person like to me, that's a little I don't know, it just maybe it's just because of my cultural background, in my social background, but it's a little troubling to me. Well, I would say one of the most important things about our relationships is that over time we grow and mature

through conflict and compromise. Sure, and if you are if you are not experiencing any conflict and compromise in your relationship, you're you're probably not growing in your emotional maturity. Right, So would you be okay with a with a robot that had the kind of AI machine learning that would let it introduce conflict and resolution and growth in that way and in both yourself and your robot partner. I'm not sure what I would be okay with in terms

of what other people do. So I'm not sure in this whole discussion that I feel comfortable saying what I feel would be right for their people or not. I certainly wouldn't feel right for it for myself. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I'm trying to do the same thing, Joe. I'm trying to approach this from okay, from my own personal standpoint for me, because I mean, I don't feel really comfortable telling other people what they should and shouldn't do either unless they're on my lawn, in which case

I feel very comfortable doing it. But uh, you know, in this case, yeah, it's it's it's tricky stuff. It brings up this concept of machine ethics, which is interesting because it's a developing field, right. It's not something that is It's not like we have a carved in silicon list of rules, you know. It's not like Isaac as Abov's three Laws of Robotics that's been codified somehow. It's

actually a developing field of study. Yeah. I mean machine ethics, I guess, is all about how to get robots or computers or machines whatever to behave in ways that we would consider ethical. And it's a complex field because it involves number one, not just how to get their intelligence working in a way that it executes ethical decisions, but number two involves questions we haven't even necessarily settled here in the world for ourselves, like what is ethical in

any given situation and in a human to human interaction? Yeah, let alone a human too machine interaction, which I think should be the which is not really what Asthmov covers in those three laws of ethics, but I think is possibly the more important kind of responsibility of if we are creating something that is capable of having any kind of individual experience, experiences, or emotions. Right, it's sort of

the other way around. It's not just how do we get machines to behave ethically, but we need to think about do we need to behave ethically toward machine exactly, which we've talked about before in our robot Rights podcast. So if we get to a point where we're able to have robotic some sort of robotic potential spouse that seems to have a fully fleshed out personality instead of behave of yours, seems at least on the surface to have the same sort of qualities that another human being

would have. So you're saying, like its own independent personality, you can't reprogram it, it will right right it it appears at least on the surface to be as quote unquote real as another human being would. Then you have other questions like, well is it having an individual experience? If if it's so convincing that to us it is indistinguishable from a human being's personality. Can we be absolutely certain there's no individual experience going on there? I mean,

think about it. If it's a robot and there's some chance for it to have an individual experience, it might have an individual experience that's completely independent of whatever it's programming is forcing it to do, which is the most horrifying thing to think about. Like, it's hard to imagine what that would be like. And I think, to be fair, all of our intuitions tell us no, there's no such

thing as what it's like to be this machine. But we can't know well, especially once we get to a point where artificial intelligence gets so complex as to be indistinguishable. Right then then there's real questions. You know, it maybe and maybe that it's having an individual experience that is impossible for us to define in human terms. But it doesn't mean that there's not an experience going on, oh sure.

And I mean, furthermore, the same way that we all feel bad when someone kicks a robot dog, and we do feel bad about that. I mean, I mean, colloquially speaking, we do. I haven't read any research specifically about it, but I think it's fair to say, you know, the anecdotal evidence in this room is in a well, I don't know about I don't know about our our rots. The cuter they are, the better. He's just grinning evilly. So I'll say this room are definitely against kicking robot dogs,

and with a possible on the fence. So I would argue that there's possibly some kind of um mental toll to be taken allowing yourself to put yourself in this in this kind of weird god situation where you are

creating and destroying robot personalities. Yeah, I just I I keep thinking I need to write a story where it's kind of another one of those explorations of the quiet desperation of of the suburbs, you know, those stories that were really popular in the eighties and nineties, but but said it in the future, where you talk about on the surface, this relationship looks perfect, right, whether it's a robot man or robot woman doesn't really matter actually, But

there's a human and a robot um their spouses, and on the surface everything looks perfect, and the human spouse is perfectly happy, and the robot spouse, to all outward appearances, is perfectly happy, so much that it's indistinguishable to the human person whether or not the robot's happy or not. But deep inside, under those layers of programming that forced the robot to behave a certain way, the robot is

desperately unhappy. Like that's that's terrifying to me. And it's and it's something that it's when you think about it, it's something that theoretically, assuming we get to this point where artificial consciousness is possible, that's a possible outcome. Yeah, it's one of those weird things where we don't know. It kind of seems unlikely, but then again just the

fact that it's possible is freaky. Yeah. So again that raises this question about what how would we ethically go about an approach where you know, when you think about these robots would have to be built for companionship purposes. You I don't think we would be talking about like in Futurama. All the robots and Futurama are built for for ridiculous reasons, Like you have orphan robots, So someone

built a robot to be an orphan robot. But you know, I can't imagine that this would be something that we would see in like a general purpose robot speaking of Futurama. Futurama actually posits another implication entirely to this, which is done satirically of course, but um what they they there's one where they watch a little instructional video why you shouldn't date robots, what's the danger? And future Ama world? They're too good, like the robot lovers are that you

don't you don't do anything else. You just like hang out with your robot companion because it's perfect. Yeah, and you don't do anything productive and then Earth gets taken over by aliens and you don't care, right right, Yeah, I mean you know another one of those arguments, right well, I mean it's is we're having a little fun. We're joking around a little bit now, which is good because the front half of this was a little heavy, but um, you know, it's it's it really is kind of a

deep question here. It's one of those things where if if we haven't reached the point where there's any kind of consciousness, maybe we're completely confident that there's no consciousness within these robotic companions. The question there is can you have a meaningful relationship knowing and in your heart that this is an artificial construct with no real meaning behind it. And on the other hand, if we aren't sure or if we feel like there is a consciousness, can we

be sure that this is what that consciousness wants? I mean, it's it's a tough question. So so do you guys think do you guys agree with Dr Levy? Do you think that that we're gonna see human robot marriages? I mean, twenty fifties a long way away, So there's that, Uh, you know, I think it would depend on what you're talking about with this sort of legal and social idea

of marriage. Um, I think imagining the idea of robot marriage on a continuum with with human marriage throughout the sort of like legal metamorphosis of it is not really accurate. It's it's not it's so not accurate that it's in fact really offensive. I think too. I mean, because I've heard Dr Levy compare it to interracial marriage or gay marriage,

and that is so offensive, y'all. That is just not okay because the difference, Yeah, there's no human right, right, you're that is not a valid comparison because all all of those other kinds of marriage are between two human people. That just society has previously said shouldn't get married. And I see that now in the robot robot human marriages,

you still have one human component in that. So I mean, it's not I'm saying not, it's not analogous, it's not comparable, I would say, But at the same time, it's it's it's there's still a human element to this question, and it depending upon the question of consciousness that also makes things it's different. It's again you don't get comparing it and putting it on that spectrum is a mistake. I agree, it's a different set of questions we should be asking.

All I'm saying is that is that a marriage requires two consenting people, at least in our country, yes, right, ideally anyway, And so yeah, you're you're you're getting into a technical definition of of personhood, right, yeah, and you get into the question of right if you're talking about marriage in the sense of two consenting entities, however you wanted to find that, can you be sure that the robot is I mean, there's one party that, as far as we know, at least right now, could not give

consent incapable legally and physically incapable of consenting. So then you know that's a that's a whole other can of worms there. In the short term, at least to me, it seems like the idea of including a robot into marriage. While I don't want to like disdain that idea, it does seem like that would just sort of entail a dissolution of what marriage means is illegal or social concept, because if you can marry an inanimate object, no matter how lifelike it seems, I mean, can you marry like

a painting or like a computer program that's not autonomously moving? Say, could you marry like software? Well? And and the other thing is that, you know, the legal definition of marriage is more about contributions to society as well, Like it's it's property attacks. Yeah, I mean it's a very like it's a very paperwork heavy kind of thing. It's not this is taking all romance out of any sort of relationship. I don't mean that when you get married all romance

goes away. And I'm not a sitcom from the nineteen eighties. But but what I mean is that when you're looking looking at the whole legal approach to it, it's really more about this is this is the institution inside this legal system that changes your designation in a legal way. Maybe we don't see a legal marriage between humans and robots. It may just be that what we do see is a general acceptance of the fact that there are some people who have what they feel is a completely emotionally

fulfilling relationship. Again, it's one of those questions that's really hard to answer right now because we're so far removed from a world where that is, you know, of a realistic question like the the cases that we see, the ones that we've mentioned so far in this episode, are really, as you mentioned, sensationalist in the sense that this is far h it's it's nowhere near like an artificial intelligent being.

It's not a robot um And it's just one of those uh things that unfortunately a lot of people like to point to because it's so far outside the norm that it's a curiosity, that it's something to uh either scratch your head at or laugh at. I mean, that's why a lot of people react to this sort of stuff. Um. But I mean it could be that by twenty fifty it's one of those things that, while it may not be fully socially acceptable, I could see it being something

that is not unheard of. Um again, make that is completely based on assumptions that are artificial intelligence. Progress is going to continue to a point where we can have these sort of realistic personalities. Now, can I ask a pretty scary question, at least from my point of view? Uh, if it's did you know there's a spider on your head? Then you may not ask that it will free me out? No,

I'll just let it crawl around. Shoot, it's a black widow. Um. So in in the if you go far enough in the future and imagine what we're talking about, this kind of like absolutely indistinguishable human mimicking robot, you know, the android that we just really cannot tell. Yeah, would it be uh, and whether and I'm not addressing the issue of whether it has consciousness or anything, just imagining we can't tell the difference outward appearances. It seems to be

like a human being. Could you be tricked? But would you think that you were starting a relationship with the human being and be in a relationship at the robot. Obviously, if it's indistinguishable, you could be tricked. By the definition of indistinguishable. Would that fear be enough of a concern for people to to look back on this and say, no, no, no, I don't want autonomous, convincing human humanoid robots running around

in society. It's hard for me to imagine that world simply because it would require some form of facility that's churning out realistic robots and then setting them loose on a world that those robots could independently find and quote unquote fall in love with people to quote uh, to

quote Ian Malcolm, life finds a way. But that's you're you're saying something that that seems in distingistinguishable in life, but may not distinguishable from life the important Okay, Well, I honestly I don't think that that is a very realistic scenario, simply because there's I can't imagine a anything in the near future where robots are entering the population at large, certainly not in the near future. Also, I can't imagine a completely convincing humanoid robot there. That's what

I was going to say. I mean, the the the Uncanny Valley is so steep and end eternal that I I I think that robots are going to be a little bit creepy for a very very long time. Yeah, I already got enough creepy human friends. So I'm good, Yeah, you know some of them? Uh at any rate? Um? Yeah, I mean it's an interesting question. I think that it's

it's not going to be something we're gonna have. I don't think I'm going to see that be a concern in my lifetime, especially now in your head right now, please stop, um I I honestly don't think that we're going to get to a point where AI and robotics are good enough to produce convincing human counterparts by certainly, now that being said, if Ray Kurtzwell is correct and we have the singularity hit by, it maybe a mood question, because it may not be that we're talking about robots.

We might be talking about the next step in human evolution where humans and robots merge in some way or another, in which case, you know, it may be that you're wondering how much humanity is in the person and that you are dating. Would you guys marry a star baby? I don't know. I was just thinking about Darth Vader, who's more machine now than man, twisted and evil yet so erotic. Yeah, the way he screamed no at the end of episode three certainly got a reaction out of me.

I was mostly discussed and despair. But hey, you know enough about my college dating days. Let's wrap this up all right, So you know this. I know that this is kind of a weird topic because it's so far removed from what our reality is right now, but it's really interesting too, and it it certainly highlights the concerns about ethics and AI in a different way than the way we had talked about in our previous episode about

should robots have rights? Uh, this definitely is is very closely um related to that, but it's a very specific case. Check out that podcast if you want some background on what we just talked about, right, and folks, if you want to join in on this conversation, maybe you have a different point of view than what we said here in this podcast, or maybe you've got some insight into this in a way that we didn't anticipate. We'd love

to hear from you. You can write us an email our addresses f W Thinking at Discovery dot com, or join in on the conversation online on various social platforms, for instance, Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook. You can find us with f W Thinking there. Don't forget to go to f w thinking dot com. That's our website where we've got all the podcasts, the video series, the blog posts that are there, other information is there. You should go check that out too, and we will talk to

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