People Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop Them
Jason ParhamCultureAug 14, 2026 6:15 AMPeople Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop ThemHuman-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law. But when he received a call last year from a woman in California expressing a desire to marry her chatbot, it was a first for him.“I had never heard of such a thing, but I talked to her on the phone and she seemed totally normal and fun,” Breen says, adding that the wedding still hasn’t taken place.
- ▪Jason ParhamCultureAug 14, 2026 6:15 AMPeople Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots.
- ▪These Lawmakers Want to Stop ThemHuman-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law.
- ▪But when he received a call last year from a woman in California expressing a desire to marry her chatbot, it was a first for him.“I had never heard of such a thing, but I talked to her on the phone and she seemed totally normal and fun,” B
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| Original publisher | WIRED |
| Canonical URL | https://www.wired.com/story/people-are-marrying-chatbots-these-lawmakers-want-to-stop-them/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:15:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-08-14T11:49:39.992Z |
| Last seen | 2026-08-14T11:49:39.992Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
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| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
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| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Jason ParhamCultureAug 14, 2026 6:15 AMPeople Are ‘Marrying’ Chatbots. These Lawmakers Want to Stop ThemHuman-AI marriages are not currently recognized by US law. Some Republican state policymakers are drafting legislation to keep it that way.Photo-Illustration: WIRED Staff; Getty ImagesCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyCommentLoaderSave StorySave this storyAs a licensed officiant at Las Vegas Immersive Weddings, a chapel that offers novelty-themed marriage packages, Kevin Breen has officiated just about every kind of service imaginable: couples dressed as their favorite Game of Thrones characters, partners really into the extraterrestrial lore of Area 51.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at WIRED.
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