Sex with the singularity

Ray Kurzweil’s wild predictions about pleasure, consent, and reproduction in the age of superhuman A.I.

The first time I met Harmony, back in 2017, I was dumbstruck. I was also, admittedly, a bit out of my depth. I’d come into contact with “the world’s first sex robot” and her creator, Matt McMullen, while researching automated companions for my web series, Computer Love. Over the course of the next year and change I followed Harmony’s development and the growing hype around sex robots, but I’d only begun to grapple with the possibility of human-like A.I. and my understanding of the topic was relatively limited. 

I became something of a sex robot expert while documenting humanity's growing dependence on machines, but I’d yet to consider the true origins of the slack-jawed automaton that was capturing the nation’s attention. My stories about Harmony set traffic records for Engadget. Meanwhile, media outlets the world over were speculating about what the uncanny lover would mean for the future of human relationships. Would they break up happy homes? Perpetuate unhealthy sexual behavior? Or,  as one particularly salacious Gizmodo headline put it, “fuck us all to death”? 

At the height of sex robot hysteria, I was asked to consider our capacity for falling in love with artificial companions on daytime TV. Weeks prior, producers of the Dr. Oz Show invited me to New York to appear as an expert on an episode about the apparent horrors of mixing sex and technology. Other guests included a college communications major who caught chlamydia from a Tinder date and a 24-year-old woman who was stabbed 21 times by the fiance she met online. Then there was Harmony, at least in spirit. Oz’s team had failed to get her on a plane to New York, but she was at the center of a largely alarmist conversation about our collective connection to our machines. 

When Oz asked me point-blank if I thought it was possible for people to have real, intimate relationships with robots, the answer was a simple “not yet.” I pointed to Harmony’s lack of sophistication and missing pieces like artificial pheromones. Her gestures were jerky, the mechanisms noisy, and her responses often painfully awkward. Her body was masterfully modeled from silicone by a team of real artists, but without her uncanny exterior, she was, in many ways, no more lovable than a Teddy Ruxpin strapped to a Fleshlight. 

Her body was one thing, but her mind and personality were killer features that Harmony’s handlers had yet to perfect. Seven long, strange years later and I’ve found myself reconsidering  my answer to Dr. Oz’s question. Like everyone else I’ve witnessed the explosion of large language models and generative A.I. I’ve watched as a once far-off-future has come zooming into focus. And I’ve learned a lot about the people and philosophies shaping our collective future.  

Ray Kurzweil is one of those people. The A.I. luminary’s new work of speculative non-fiction, The Singularity is Nearer, is an update to his 2005 best-seller, The Singularity is Near, which reiterated key points from his 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines, itself an extension of 1990’s The Age of Intelligent Machines. For decades Kurzweil has continually repackaged and sold a very specific vision of the future in which humans merge with superhuman A.I. to live forever in massive super-servers across the universe. 

Many contend that such a future is impossible. Still, Kurzweil has been praised for the accuracy of his predictions. Even if you aren’t buying what he’s selling, his views are incredibly popular with some of the world’s most powerful people and, whether you like it or not, they’re shaping our future in his vision. On the eve of Kurzweil’s next publication, I wanted to explore his often wild ideas about the trajectory of human-machine intimacy and what Harmony’s successors could have in store for us. Spoiler alert: It’s not all great. 

Nano-Anatomy 

According to Kurzweil, our cyborg transformation has already begun and it could have a profound impact on “every institution and aspect of human life, from sexuality to spirituality.” He forecasts that within the next two decades, we’ll essentially replace our skeletons and internal organs with hyper-intelligent nanobot swarms. These micro-machines will also manipulate our brains to create a virtual overlay on the world. 

In a recent interview Kurzweil said he has 50 different charts to show that things are better and people are happier than they were hundreds of years ago. He believes that trend will continue on through our cyborg metamorphosis until we’re all just shiny, happy data in the sky.

Who needs a penis or a vagina when pleasure and reproduction are a matter of ones and zeroes? 

In order for humans to literally become one with machines, Kurzweil suggests a full-body overhaul. In the Singularity is Near he charts our cyborg transition through a series of internal upgrades. The body 2.0, as Kurzweil calls it, is set to debut in the early 2030s and will do away with most of our vital organs. 

“We've eliminated the heart, lungs, red and white blood cells, platelets, pancreas, thyroid and all the hormone producing organs, kidneys, bladder, liver, lower esophagus, stomach, small intestines, large intestines, and bowel. What we have left at this point is the skeleton, skin, sex organs, sensory organs, mouth and upper esophagus, and brain,” he says. 

The body 2.0 will be teeming with nanobots that not only allow us to live indefinitely but also enhance our emotions by triggering targeted areas in our brains. We will no longer have sex for reproduction and our offspring will gestate in labs, not wombs. During this transitional period, we’ll keep our skin, skeletons, and sex organs but even these are not long for this world. Who needs a penis or a vagina when pleasure and reproduction are a matter of ones and zeroes? 

With the introduction of the body 3.0, which Kurzweil expects to arise by the 2040s, we’ll maintain the appearance of the human body but largely replace all of its original parts. We’ll also be able to change our appearance at will, either in virtual environments, or in the real world with help from even more nanobots. Eventually, the human body will fade from view and our lives will become purely virtual. Reproduction will be push-button and falling in love, like sharing a hard drive. 

Trading Places

Within the next couple of decades, Kurzweil posits, shapeshifting humans will have better sex than ever. In a transhumanist utopia, superhuman A.I. will allow us to adjust pleasure like volume on a stereo. Dial up ecstasy for the ultimate orgasm; dial back guilt for extra kinky encounters. Nanobot swarms will be able to instantly alter everything from height and weight to gender and even species. But even before they take over, advanced virtual reality will present sexual possibilities far beyond anything we’ve ever imagined, making even the wildest sex today seem vanilla by comparison.

“Many new types of experiences will become possible: A man can feel what it’s like to be a woman, and vice versa. Indeed, there’s no reason why you can’t be both at the same time …” Kurzweil writes in The Age of Spiritual Machines. 

Reverse Catfish 

He also suggests that our ability to scratch whatever itch we desire could lead to the end of monogamy and the decriminalization of sex work. It’s a seemingly progressive sexual agenda until you consider Kurzweil’s excitement around one key feature of our sexual future.  He writes that our ability to morph into whoever and whatever we want will have no limit. We’ll also be able to manipulate the appearance of our lovers at will, and without their consent. 

“You will be able to change the physical appearance and other characteristics of yourself and your partner. You can make your lover look and feel like your favorite star without your partner’s permission or knowledge. Of course, be aware that your partner may be doing the same to you,” Kurzweil writes in The Age of Spiritual Machines. 

He goes on to say that sex in VR, “will introduce an array of slippery slopes,” but he doesn’t list a slide in consent among them. In fact he seems to find this engineered reverse catfish rather amusing. In an imagined conversation with a fictional time traveler named Molly, Kurzweil goes into more detail about how “image transformers” could work. Molly explains that when she’s not in the mood, her boyfriend can essentially undress her anyway.

“You know he can undress me just at his end.”

“Oh yes, of course, the computer is altering your image in real time.” 

“Exactly. You can change someone’s face, body, clothing, or surroundings into someone or something else entirely, and they don’t know you’re doing it.”

“Hmm.”

“Anyway, I caught Ben undressing his old girlfriend when she called to congratulate him on our engagement. She had no idea and thought it was harmless. I didn’t speak to him for a week.”

“Well as long as it’s just at his end.”’

Six years later, Kurzweil approached the subjects of partner swapping and sexual shapeshifting in the Singularity is Near. In a meandering conversation with the same Molly and a group of other fictional and historical figures, including Sigmund Freud and Timothy Leary, he reminds Molly that she’ll be able have sex with whoever she wants whenever she wants and that “the body you choose for yourself in the virtual environment may be different from the body that your partner chooses for you at the same time.”

This time the question of consent never entered the picture. I don’t know if Kurzweil’s outlook on consent in virtual worlds has evolved over the last 19 years – I’m eager to see what he has to say about the future of sex in a post-#metoo world – but these passages should raise a red flag for us all.  

Ray Kurzweil and his comrades in transhumanism may be changing the world in fascinating ways. They may understand the laws of physics and exponential growth and they might actually succeed at bringing about their version of the future. But are they the best people to decide what we do with our bodies?

One of the scenarios Kurzweil comes back to repeatedly when discussing sex in the singularity, is the ability to conjure a sexual encounter with your favorite star. When I read it now, I can’t help but call to mind the endless accounts of celebrity deep fakes and, more specifically, the recent controversy over Open A.I. 's ham-handed attempt to attach Scarlett Johansson to its latest ChatGPT release. We now live in a world where Large Language Models routinely gobble up our intellectual property and multinational corporations trade our data for profit. 

The man who measures happiness on charts wants us to live in a world full of slippery slopes, where there are no boundaries, where agency is a fallacy, and consent a non-issue. Kurzweil is undeniably adept at foreseeing the future. It’s a wonder, then, that he can’t see the potential damage in doing away with a person’s right to privacy.