In recent years, the number of people who marry themselves, their pet, the statue of liberty or a chandelier has increased. Obviously, something is changing.
One of the characteristics that best define our time is the permanent questioning of what is natural. Western societies did not go from the Middle Ages to the Modern Age overnight. It has been a gradual process that lasted for many years, even centuries.
We are currently immersed in a similar transition between modernity and post-modernity. Ours time is one in which previously established conceptions of the world are collapsing. There are several precedents but the biggest changes began to take place in the 70s of the last century.
The theory of deconstruction developed by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida proposes to deconstruct (not simply destroy but overcome) the traditional oppositions between men and women, humans and animals, right and left, etc.
It would seem logical, then, to apply this theory to the distinction between humans and robots. Nobody denies that there is a difference between the two, but it is about admitting that the limits between one and the other are diffuse. Moreover, as artificial intelligence advances, these differences will become even more diffuse.
In the past, people who have celebrated nuptials with trees, animals or inanimate objects have done so more for symbolic reasons or because of their cultural importance. We should remember how in 1979 Eija-Ritta Berliner-Mauer married the Berlin Wall.
However, in the case of artificial intelligence it is a more complex relationship and in almost every way equivalent to a relationship between humans (at least in one direction).
Legislation in most countries does not stipulate this type of situation (just as it did not stipulate same-sex marriages until recently). This means that unions in symbolic ceremonies are not illegal, but they lack legal validity. For example, in the event of the death of one of the spouses, there would be no widow's pension.
The truth is that today this may still seem ridiculous or mere speculation close to science fiction, but it opens a debate that will probably be more common in a few years. In the future more and more people will have romantic relationships with advanced forms of artificial intelligence and one can only hope that the divorce rate is slightly better than the actual one.
