David Levy, the artificial intelligence researcher at the University of Maastricht believes that by the 2050, marriage with robots can already be legalized. Levy has just completed his PhD work on relationship of humans and robots, including many aspects of these relations, including the family ties.

The idea of romantic relations between a human and a human-made creature dates back to ancient myth about the sculptor Pygmalion who fell in love with the statue named Galatea, which he had created himself, and to which the goddess of love had finally granted life.

"There's a trend of robots becoming more human-like in appearance and coming more in contact with humans," Levy said. "At first robots were used impersonally, in factories where they helped build automobiles, for instance. Then they were used in offices to deliver mail, or to show visitors around museums, or in homes as vacuum cleaners, such as with the Roomba. Now you have robot toys, like Sony's Aibo robot dog, or Tickle Me Elmos, or digital pets like Tamagotchis."

Levy argues, that robots will soon become so human-like in visually and psychologically, that people will fall in love with them, have sex or even marry them. "It may sound a little weird, but it isn't," Levy said. "Love and sex with robots are inevitable." He mentions the recently discovered reasons of falling in love, and he argues, all of them can be applied to human-robot relations as well, for example: same character, same interests or education, etc., which can be programmed quite easily.

Due to the rapid technologic development, the human-robot marriages can become reality very soon. Levy argues, that even one century ago, inter-racial or same-sex marriage was illegal in the United States. "There has been this trend in marriage where each partner gets to make their own choice of who they want to be with." Levy believes the first state to legalize such marriage will be Massachusetts, because of its more liberal nature, as compared with the rest of the states.

The robot specialist from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta Ronald Arkin generally agrees with the Levy’s argument: "Humans are very unusual creatures," Arkin said. "If you ask me if every human will want to marry a robot, my answer is probably not. But will there be a subset of people? There are people ready right now to marry sex toys."

According to Levy the main justification of human-robot marriage would be to make those people, who wouldn’t otherwise marry happier. He says there are a lot of people to whom it is a real problem to find a couple, because they are shy, not good-looking, bad-tempered, etc.

The ethical questions are a serious obstacle to human-robot relations. Some believe, having a robot for sex could decrease prostitution. However, "in a marriage or other relationship, one partner could be jealous or consider it infidelity if the other used a robot," Levy said. "But who knows, maybe some other relationships could welcome a robot. Instead of a woman saying, 'Darling, not tonight, I have a headache,' you could get 'Darling, I have a headache, why not use your robot?' "

However Akin poses serious questions about the future of our society, in case humanity becomes too much attached to the robots. This can change the whole course of civilization, bringing both a lot of problems and maybe even a bit of benefits. Meanwhile, Levy is working on another paper about the ethical treatment of robots: "the ethical issues on how to treat them are something we'll have to consider very seriously, and they're very complicated issues," he said.