Marginal Revolution: Best Sentence of the Day

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Best Sentence of the Day

By 2025 “at the latest,” he predicts, “artificial-emotion technologies” will allow robots to be more emotionally available than the typical American human male.

I believe that my wife would not be alone in thinking that the toaster exceeded this standard some time ago.

Posted by Alex Tabarrok on December 2, 2007 at 09:14 AM in Books | Permalink

Comments

Alex's comment is an even better sentence

Posted by: Joe at Dec 2, 2007 9:54:01 AM

Males are as capable of emotion as females. Males just judge it to be uninteresting. Females judge it as the gateway to a huge world of emotional complexity that will engross them completely. Usually in front of TVs.

Posted by: Ron Hardin at Dec 2, 2007 1:15:30 PM

Once robots start killing spiders, we men may well be useless to women.

Posted by: Yancey Ward at Dec 2, 2007 1:34:39 PM

But then who will kill off the robot-spiders? Men, that's who!

Posted by: Urstoff at Dec 2, 2007 3:55:52 PM

Once robots start having sex, women will be totally useless to men.

Posted by: Asimov at Dec 2, 2007 8:14:01 PM

Once robots stop hiding their emotional response to the typical woman's behaviour, women may find they prefer the stoic men.

Posted by: doctorpat at Dec 2, 2007 8:36:04 PM

Imagine what the reaction have been if some AI researcher were to write, "And soon, we expect increasing machine intelligence to make computers more capable of carrying on an intelligent conversation than a typical woman."

Posted by: Aric at Dec 2, 2007 10:39:34 PM

Will the robot interrupt me with meaningless conversation during a football game? Ask meaningless questions? Remind me to clean the basement?

Have to go, spider alert.

Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Dec 3, 2007 1:13:08 AM

I don't know if this day will arrive in 2025 (seems a bit early to me, but maybe) but I think it will eventually. We all know (or anyone with an SO knows) that people can get on each other's nerves, and they can be abusive, selfish, cheats, etc. Half of marriages end in divorce, so obviously there's some room for improvement.

But we have to mate, right? Sure, but that doesn't mean that we have to live together. It could be a business relationship. Man commits to paying X up front and X per month (if he wants the privilege of passing on his genes) and woman accepts the best offer available. She and her robot husband raise the kids (or maybe the man and his robot wife do). Maybe there are separate robot nannies.

I suppose people will say this is creepy, and maybe it is, but I think we will get used to the idea and it will start to feel normal.

Posted by: Tim at Dec 3, 2007 4:05:26 AM

I had a friend tell me once that no matter how great she may seem, no matter how beautiful, someone somewhere is tired of her s#@$. The same will go for emotionally sensitive and aware robots.

Posted by: Steven Augustine at Dec 3, 2007 1:05:46 PM

one more robot - flaming lips

Posted by: henry at Dec 3, 2007 2:10:46 PM

Posted by: RAID数据恢复 at Dec 3, 2007 8:16:00 PM

Men will respond with drastic, self-threatening measures to increase their "emotional availability".

Women will respond with drastic, self-threatening measures to increase their sexual attractiveness.

Oh wait, already got the second one.

Posted by: Person at Dec 4, 2007 1:56:52 PM

I don't know if this will happen as soon as 2025 but I do believe the technology is out there to do this. I think there could be some positive with a robot with more emotion than a male, for a man you could buy one for your wife so she can talk with it and whine about whatever she wants to and you wouldn't have to hear it. She could work all her problems out and you could still watch football and relax after your long day of work. I don't think that women would choose a robot over a man for the long run but I do think they could be beneficial, kind of like a maid.

Posted by: John at Dec 7, 2007 11:04:20 PM

If the robots are readily available by 2025, I think there will be two things that men will do.
1. They will be happy to get rid of their wifes for a while so they don't have to act emotional around them.
2. They will go insane trying to be more emotional to their partners.

Posted by: Alex at Dec 7, 2007 11:10:04 PM

Who needs a robot? Just have your S.O. befriend a flamboyant gay man.

Re: the machines, it's a matter of how advanced the robots get.

Sexy female robots will come first, because the hardware technology will probably be easier to create than realistic emotional intelligence.

Creepy at first, but as the tech improves and becomes more affordable, lots of guys will jump ship. That entire segment of society will retard their social acuity even further. At first, women will get sexier to compete with this new threat.

Then the male robots will get good personalities. The female market will explode, and women will start jumping ship. An entire generation of females will get fat and jello-like. Sales of chocolate and plus sized clothing will soar.

The final phase: we won't we able to tell the robots apart from the humans. People say they'll demand rights, but I don't think so. If they're evolving faster than us, they'll be smart enough to realize it's not worth the risk. Instead, they'll probably act just like us when we're around to make us feel comfortable (even get fat to blend in), and slowly replace us.

Once the last humans are gone, they'll do whatever it is their advanced intelligence inspires them to, after they hit the gym for a few weeks to burn off their disgusting gelatinous costumes.

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