Robot marries Japanese couple
By QMI Agency
The bride wore white, the groom was in a tuxedo and the wedding officiant was bolted to her chair.
A humanoid robot married a Japanese couple on Sunday. The robot's manufacturer says it was the first wedding ceremony performed by a robot.
I-Fairy, a 4-foot-3 robot from Japanese company Kokoro, pronounced Tomohiro Shibata and Satoko Inoue husband and wife at a rooftop ceremony at a Tokyo hotel.
The white and grey plastic robot is human-shaped and performed the ceremony in Japanese in a soft female voice. The I-Fairy wore a wreath of white flowers on her head and her LED eyes flashed green, blue and purple as she spoke.
After the ceremony, the newlyweds posed for photographs with the I-Fairy, the bride and groom each holding a robotic hand.
The bride, Satoko Inoue, works at Kokoro. She told the Associated Press that being married by a robot was "a lot of fun."
"I think the Japanese have a strong sense that robots are our friends," she said. "Those in the robot industry mostly understand this, but people mainly want robots near them that serve some purpose." Her husband, Tomohiro Shibata, said it would have been nice if the robot was "a bit more clever." Kokoro (the name means "spirit" or "heart" in Japanese) began building large-scale moveable dinosaur robots in 1984, and has since moved on to develop humanoid robots.
The company's mission is to "build robots which can live and coexist with us human beings, entertaining and communicating with us."
I want to salute the Japanese for not giving up on robots. In the 1980s it seemed like we were on the precipice of having a robot in every home. A robot that could do our homework, do our laundry and bring us drinks. But the closest we ever got was Screech's robot Kevin or the robot from 'Revenge of the Nerds.' But the Japanese have never given up. Sure, they wasted a lot of time with those robot dogs but now that we have robot preachers it seems like we may be one step closer to me finally owning Johnny 5.
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