Marianne Brandon Ph.D.
The Future of Intimacy
SEX
Can tech become better at humanity than we are?
KEY POINTS
- Technology is poised to assist humans with enhanced sex, relationships, and even parenting.
- The lines between tech and humanity are blurring before our eyes.
- It’s time for us to mindfully decide our goals for the future of intimacy.
Technology permeates all aspects of our lives, including our most human moments such as romance, sex, and parenting. The lines between tech and humanity are blurring — chatbots look and sound more human, while real-life humans look and sound more perfect. We are fast approaching a point in human evolution where, for the first time, literally every generation will experience intimacy differently than the one before. As our world transforms, does our humanity become more of an asset — something we appreciate and cultivate in contrast to advancing tech — or a liability, which is something we minimize considering technology’s superior perfectionism?
Source: Fizkes/Shutterstock
Holding humanity up to a bar of technical perfection means tech will ultimately win the competition with humanity. Some would say that we are not competing with tech, but I disagree. Considering the numbers of people already concerned that AI will consume their job, or entice their lover, I’m pretty sure it’s already “game on.”
I watch with utter amazement at the changes I already see in sex and intimate relationships since technology arrived on the scene. Equally mind-blowing is that it’s unclear how people will feel about these advancements in even a decade or two, and how we seem to be ignoring or at least minimizing this inevitable and mysterious transition. Perhaps folks feel helpless to impact this transformation, overwhelmed by it, or they assume that since it’s characterized as advancement, it will ultimately be good. From an ethical perspective though, younger generations are depending on us to think this through. Consider these scenarios — as bizarre as they may seem, they are not far-fetched in the coming decades:
- You want a child, but you are having trouble conceiving. You put off relationships and pregnancy for years because you wanted to get your career set up — and you succeeded. But now you feel pressure to act quickly. You decide to conceive with an amazing new technology that creates gametes from your stem cells because it offers a high quantity of embryos, and thus the ability to select among many potential offspring. Not only can you and your partner chose the most viable embryos, you also can pick the embryos most likely to be “superior,” such as intellectually or athletically. You make the difficult decision to bypass the “DNA modification enhancement” option because it takes embryo choice to a whole other ethical level — is perfecting their DNA even appropriate? But you worry that this caution on your part will limit your child’s prospects. You and your partner decided to keep silent on your decision to proceed with modern fertility tech, since some people raise ethical concerns about it being only available to the wealthy, plus it’s been likened to eugenics.
- You want, and deserve, a better sex life. You’ve been in a committed relationship for a few years and sex just isn’t as satisfying as it used to be. You both agreed to open your relationship if this happened, so it’s not like you are unprepared. But you are clear about what you want and need, and you just aren’t willing to tolerate yet another imperfect human with all their emotional baggage. Truth be told, humans really are so picky and sexually demanding. You prefer special ordering a lover in VR — customizing her personality, body size, and sexual style. With an avatar, you don’t have to worry about its needs, and it’s always an enthusiastic and engaging sex partner. Plus, when you get bored, you just have it reprogramed. Your partner feels threatened by your custom designing a perfect lover, but really — who needs to know? It’s so much easier to hide a virtual lover than a human one…
- Your child has been struggling at preschool. He seems uncomfortable in social situations and spends lots of time alone. His teacher commented that he isolates himself and you are well aware that he spends lots of time alone at home, too. Nonetheless, you have a big project looming at work and you feel pressure to outperform your human colleagues. In spite of your better judgement, you slide the smart monitor on your child’s wrist and boot up the robot nanny. Your son is too young to understand that the avatar isn’t alive. At least he won’t feel lonely again this afternoon…
Believe it or not, these scenarios are realistic and even inevitable within the next few decades. I watch with great curiosity the changes already evident in intimacy — we’ve evolved from sex with a human to sex with tech, from traditional courtship to digital connections mediated by algorithms, and from pregnancy instigated by sex to pregnancy via advanced technology. Already, our technological evolution has fundamentally transformed how we meet potential partners, form relationships, and express intimacy — both enhancing and complicating our human interactions. This begs the question: Are we idealizing, or at least favoring, the stuff that AI is poised to provide us? Are we developing a preference for the efficiency and perfection of technology over the authenticity of humanity? If so, what will it feel like to future humans when AI beats them at the one thing that differentiates them from technology — their humanity?
Clearly AI is solving many of our problems. And that’s a good thing. But we cannot ignore its dark side. The future of intimacy probably depends on our realistic appraisal of the pros and cons of advancing technology. What are our goals for the future of intimacy?
References
Daley, G. Q. (2007). Gametes from embryonic stem cells: A cup half empty or half full? Science, 316(5823), 409-410
Jones, R. A. (2018). Concerning the apperception of robot-assisted childcare. Philosophy & Technology, 31(3), 511-526.
Latoschik, M. E., Roth, D., Gall, D., Achenbach, J., Waltemate, T., & Botsch, M. (2017). The effect of avatar realism in immersive social virtual realities. Proceedings of the 23rd ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology, 1-10
Doudna, J. A., & Charpentier, E. (2014). Genome editing: The new frontier of genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9. Science, 346(6213), 1258096.
