Well, this piece of news was inevitable. We are all stuck
in our homes, unable to interact with humans outside our households. We are
forced to rely on our digital devices far beyond the point where it is healthy.
And now comes this: The Huffington
Post reports in its “Weird News” update that a Japanese man paid
$18,000 for his wedding, inviting 40 guests. Not so unusual, except that the
bride was a hologram, and not even a hologram of a “real” woman, but one of an singing
CGI avatar named Hatsune
Miku.
 |
| Akihiko Kondo's "bride" Hatsune Miku |
The man, Akihiko Kondo, 36, swears he is genuinely in love
with his new bride. “I never cheated on her; I’ve always been in love with
Miku-san,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about her every day.”
His family, however, is less than thrilled. They would no
doubt prefer a flesh-and-blood addition to the Kondo clan. None of his family
members attended the faux ceremony.
As the groom told the Japan Times, ““For mother, it
wasn’t something to celebrate.”
But then, Miku herself only attended the ceremony in the
form of a plush toy. She normally interacts with Kondo as a talking hologram generated
by a $2800 digital device in his Tokyo home.
Kondo seems happy enough with the arrangement. Though his family
may hold out hope he will find a real girlfriend, he doesn’t appear to be
looking for love in the real world.
According to the Japan Times, Kondo argues two-dimensional
characters can’t cheat, age or die. “I’m not seeking these in real women. It’s
impossible.”
And lest you think Kondo is an outlier among his peers, TheGamer.com
notes that Gatebox, the company whose devices broadcast the AI hologram that
Kondo fell in love with (and others like it), has already issued more than 3700
“marriage certificates” for relationships like his and Miku’s. Of course, the
certificates aren’t legally binding, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping
anyone.
If you aren’t freaked out by this, then you must have loved
the 2013 Spike Jonze film HER, starring Joaquin Phoenix. In that science
fiction thought experiment, set in the near future, Phoenix plays a lonely man
who falls in love with the artificial intelligence behind a revolutionary new computer
operating system (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). I reviewed the film when it
came out (see my review here),
so I won’t go into it in detail. Let’s just say the relationship doesn’t end
well for the human.
The relationship fails for two reasons: Theodore, the
protagonist in HER, falls for the AI because she is designed to meet all his
needs, while he isn’t required to meet any of hers. That is a human failure.
Second, the AI in HER is designed to be self-teaching; it is inevitable that
she would outgrow her “lover” in a very short time. That could be said to be a “machine”
failure, but it’s really a failure to think things through. What are the true
implications of trying to have a “relationship” with an intelligent machine?
Akihiko Kondo and his 3699 compatriots might want to give
that some real thought as we grow ever more reliant on our computers and digital connections.
Cheers, Donna
Information for this post provided by "Japanese Groom Spends $18,000 to Get Married to a Hologram," by David Moye, HuffPost, January 10, 2019. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/akihiko-kondo-wedding-hologram-hatsune-miku_n_5beb49b2e4b044bbb1a9e732
Good grief. I remember in one of Asimov's robot books (can't recall which one - maybe Robots of Dawn), mention is made that his robots, designed to look just like a human, began to be more interesting as sexual partners than the real thing. I can see that happening - but a virtual woman? I think Mr Kondo has a problem.
ReplyDelete