Engineer ‘married’ a robot he built himself after he gave up on his search for a spouse

In an unusual blend of engineering and emotional frustration, Chinese artificial intelligence specialist Zheng Jiajia drew international attention after he “married” a robot he built himself, having given up on the search for a human spouse. The ceremony, held in Hangzhou in China’s Zhejiang province, quickly became a global talking point.

Zheng, 31 at the time, was no hobbyist. He had earned a master’s degree in artificial intelligence from Zhejiang University and ran his own AI venture. After a heartbreak and relentless family pressure to settle down, he built a robot he named Yingying in late 2016, “dated” his creation for two months, and then tied the knot in a symbolic ceremony around the end of March 2017. The robot “bride” wore a black suit, and in a nod to traditional Chinese wedding ritual, her head was draped with a red cloth. Zheng’s mother and friends served as witnesses.

The motivation, by his friends’ account, was rooted in social pressure. The expectation to marry runs deep in Chinese culture, and Zheng had grown weary of being nagged about his single status — a frustration set against the backdrop of China’s skewed gender ratio, which has left many men struggling to find partners. Rather than keep searching, he turned his professional skills toward building a companion of his own design.

Yingying was not entirely inert. According to reports, she could recognize images, read some Chinese characters, identify people she had met, and speak a few simple words. At the time, she could not walk or move on her own, though Zheng said he intended to keep upgrading her with the goal of one day having her walk and help with household chores.

The story raised provocative questions about the future of human-machine relationships. Futurist Zoltan Istvan, weighing in on the phenomenon, predicted that such pairings could become far more common:

“I think it’s entirely possible that within a quarter century many people will be marrying machines. As AI becomes more lifelike and emotionally intelligent, humans will naturally form very strong bonds with their silicon-based friends.”

It’s worth stressing that Zheng’s “marriage” carried no legal recognition, and many observers viewed it as a publicity stunt or a piece of performance art rather than a genuine union. Still, the episode tapped into real anxieties about loneliness, social expectation, and the role technology plays in intimacy.

In the years since, that conversation has only grown louder. The rise of advanced conversational AI and a wave of AI “companion” apps have made the idea of emotional bonds with software far less fringe than it seemed in 2017 — with millions of people now chatting daily with AI partners, and ethicists and mental-health experts debating the consequences. The broader question of how artificial intelligence reshapes everyday human life is one The AEGIS Alliance has examined elsewhere, including in its reporting on how AI tools are being adopted in unexpected corners of society.

Whether viewed as eccentric spectacle or an early signal of things to come, the tale of Zheng and Yingying captured a moment when the line between human and machine relationships first began, very publicly, to blur.