Get Ready for Robot Love

It’s a small step from Roomba to betrothed, says researcher David Levy, whose Ph.D. thesis predicts humans will have sex with and marry robots within half a century. Robots have moved from factories to homes—witness the popularity of Roomba vacuum cleaners—and are becoming more human in appearance. “The question is not if this will happen, but when,” Levy told LiveScience.

Robot sex could be just five years away. “Once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon,” Levy says. He suspects Massachusetts, with its liberal politics and abundant tech ties, will be the first to wed man and machine. (More robotics stories.)