How would you like to be married by a robot instead of a flesh and blood member of the clergy or a Justice of the Peace? Romance is about to get an upgrade thanks to new advances in humanoid robotics, chatGPT, and other artificial intelligence programs. That’s good news because there is a growing labor shortage in the marriage business. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, priests and justices of the peace are quitting in record numbers, and fewer people are entering the profession to take their place.
Researchers analyzed data from thousands of exit interviews with human resources professionals in a recent survey that shows thousands of priests and justices of the peace said that they left their job because it has become a stressful grind. For example, one priest explained that he had to perform 22 weddings in a single day, or about three ceremonies per hour.
There’s no sign that the wedding industry will recover anytime soon. In some communities, couples wanting to get married are forced to wait in line for days or even weeks to get hitched. That’s a shame since there are great tax advantages for those who file jointly while sharing their lives under the protection of wedding vows.
Just as Detroit automakers transformed their factories with robotic assembly lines when they couldn’t find humans to fill low-wage jobs, the wedding industry is going to turn to robots and automation to meet an increased demand to perform nuptials 24/7.
We apologize that much of the clandestine video footage that we have received showing tests of robotic priests performing wedding ceremonies is low resolution and sometimes blurry. It was obtained for ly employees took secret cell phone videos while on the run. They would have been fired on the spot if anyone caught them, but these videos help prove that a group of billionaire business developers wants to use automated systems to boost the efficiency of newlyweds’ love lives.
The details of the Robotic Rance Venture are still being kept tightly under wraps. Insiders with knowledge of the situation told us that they have to remain anonymous because they are working under a non-disclosure agreement. The rationale is that a new automated marriage chapel business is needed since more people are living longer in the 21st century. With the divorce rate and remarriage rate higher than 50%, the additional marriages are putting a strain on the system.
In the olden days, people typically didn’t live past the age of 30, so exactly whom you married wasn’t considered as important as the need to get married to someone, anyone, soon so the next generation can be born. But now, more people are living longer and they spend their time connecting with smartphones, finding it easier to connect than our grandparents did.
Consider that in the past, a man would need to order his servant to ride in a horse-drawn carriage to deliver a handwritten invitation to a woman he wanted to take out for a date, such as to attend a sermon or hold hands while sitting in the audience at a cattle auction. But now, people routinely use their smartphones to ignore text messages asking if they are awake and in the mood for a booty call.
And technology continues to advance when it comes to Cupid. Before the advent of modern technology and the internet, some members of the clergy came up with an innovative approach to boost the efficiency of performing weddings. Instead of conducting one marriage ceremony at a time, a process that could take about 1 hour under ideal conditions and certainly not in a day’s relatively rushed schedule of three ceremonies per hour in the busiest communities, the efficiency-minded priests conducted a series of wedding-oriented time and motion studies and then began to conduct mass weddings, often marrying hundreds or even thousands of couples at once.
The ceremonies would take place in large churches, sports stadiums, or outside in large fields. For many couples, a mass wedding was the only way they could afford to formally join in matrimony. However, this efficiency came at the cost of couples missing out on a customized personal experience as they embarked on a new life as husband and wife.
In Las Vegas, Nevada, where it’s easy for drunken idiots to get married at 4 in the morning and then get divorced before lunchtime if their time between the sheets bumping uglies and making the beast with two backs didn’t go as expected, a group of high-rolling marriage business entrepreneurs is upping the ante in a bid to drum up more business and keep up with the growing appeal of on-demand wedding services.
Some romantic venture capitalists are developing a chain of robotic wedding chapels. They are still in the exploratory phase, but the first round of financing is already complete. A team of lawyers is reviewing all technology-oriented case law to find support for their idea that it’s perfectly legal for a well-programmed machine to perform weddings with the same authority as a flesh and blood Justice of the Peace, member of the clergy, or captain of a boat.
Robots should also be able to serve as witnesses to a marriage ceremony as long as they have been properly coded in all manner of ethics, civics, and the parameters of the institution of marriage. What remains to be seen is whether the United States Supreme Court will ever allow the use of artificial intelligence and speech synthesis to ask a couple of love birds if they want to spend the rest of their lives together.
And comparative longevity is especially of concern given the fact that robots are immortal and will therefore far outlive each couple they marry.
