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Texas Couple Married By Computer

A Houston, Texas couple has decided to create their own minister on their computer, after a minister friend was unable to perform the ceremony.

When Miguel Hanson and his fiancee, Diana Wesley, got married several weeks ago, a computer conducted the ceremony.

During the wedding, held in the Houston home of Hanson's parents, the couple stood before a 30-inch monitor in the backyard. In a robotic voice, the computer greeted the guests, said how the couple met and went through the ceremony.

In his 1971 story Good News From The Vatican, writer Robert Silverberg tells the story of a robot cardinal who might one day become pope.

This is the morning everyone has waited for, when at last the robot cardinal is to be elected Pope. There can no longer be any doubt of the outcome... a compromise is in the making. All factions are now agreed on the selection of the robot. This morning I read in Osservatore Romano that the Vatican computer itself has taken a hand in the deliberations. The computer has been strongly urging the candidacy of the robot. I suppose we should not be surprised by this loyalty among machines...

"Every era gets the Pope it deserves," Bishop Fitzpatrick observed somewhat gloomily today at breakfast. "The proper Pope for our times is a robot, certainly..."
(Read more about Silverberg's robot pope)

Via NBC DFW.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 7/30/2011)

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