Although there’s nothing wrong with being obsessed with all things robot, one Chinese man took this one step further by marrying a robot he built himself.
Zheng Jiajia, an artificial intelligence engineer, was so fed up of his family nagging him to find a wife that he decided to design and build a robot that would serve the purpose well.
He has named his robotic wife Yingying. The couple ‘dated’ for two months before tying the knot, buying a new suit for the occasion and inviting his entire family to the ceremony.
Although not officially recognised by authorities, the ceremony was as close to real life as it could possibly be, with Yingying’s head covered in a red cloth before the marriage, as is tradition in the local community.
Zheng is working on making Yingying more intelligent as their relationship grows. At the moment, she’s only able to read a selection of Chinese characters, understand images and say a few words, but he has high expectations. He’s currently developing the technology so she can walk and carry out household chores.
The story of the love affair between a man and his robot was shared on Chinese social networking site, WeChat, where it unsurprisingly, received a lot of attention.
“You won’t have her mother looking down on you, you don’t have the pressure to buy a home and you get to save money and energy,” one user wrote in response, while another said: “He’ll slowly get old, his face will become wrinkled and his hair will grow white – but will he upgrade her to grow old, or just to be prettier?”
