Robot Weddings

Talk about improving the human-machine interface: in Tokyo recently, a couple legally sealed its wedding vows in front of a humanoid robot with an audience of about 50 people. The 4 foot (1.22 m) I-Fairy asked the traditional ceremonial questions and then pronounced the couple man and wife, but not entirely autonomously; its speech and motion was controlled by an operator behind a screen. Are these "cute" demonstrations of robots good for promoting the technology, or are they degrading to traditional human institutions?

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