Monday, May 17, 2010

Robot Priest Marries Couple in Japan

Robot Priest Marries Couple in Japan [VIDEO]

Procedurally, the ceremony of marriage is a very linear affair. The priest says some things, then the groom and bride say some things, kisses are exchanged, and the couple is married.

Is it odd, then, that Satoko Inoue and Tomohiro Shibata decided to employ a robot called i-Fairy to marry them? Now, perhaps; but in a couple of years, especially in Japan which is already home to 800,000 industrial robots, it might become a regular occurrence.

The bride, Inoue, works for Kokoro Ltd, the company that makes the i-Fairy, a robot usually employed as a museum guide. The husband, Shibata, was a client of the company, so in a way, the robot brought them together. “It’s true that robots are what caused us to first begin going out, and as suggested by my wife, we decided that we wanted to try this sort of wedding,” Shibata said.

All it took was new software, and the robot presided over the marriage without problems, as you can see in the video below. So much for robots not understanding the meaning of love.

Posted via web from Digital Anthropology

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