A British scientist has been awarded a doctorate for a paper predicting that humans will one day marry robots.
Maastricht University awarded David Levy a PhD for a thesis entitled Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners.
Mr Levy wrote: "Trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.
The thesis examines human attitudes toward affection, love and sexuality and concluded that the findings are just as applicable to human interaction with robots of the future as they are to relationships between humans of today.
It was based on about 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction.
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