Acknowledgements: This post is completely inspired by and very much borrows from ideas in the article Down With Love? in the 4-11-22 edition of The New Yorker.

When writing replaced oral tradition, when clocks replaced sun-driven schedules, when cars replaced horses, some people bemoaned these changes. Though those detractors are seen as Luddites by most modern folk, they were prescient in that most human inventions have reduced our ability to survive without them, and perhaps even added frenzy to our lives.

Soon, relationships and sex may be added to the list of things that can be supplied by technology.

Machines that attempt to pass the Turing test–by convincing human interlocutors that they are communicating with another human via a keyboard–are getting higher scores now, since in the 21st century written communications have become linguistically simple and therefore easy to replicate. Humanistic AIs combined with advances in hardware and materials science already produce devices seeking to fulfill our romantic needs, both emotional and physical, better than any unpredictable, unreliable, unfocused-on-my-needs, actual person.

From SF emerged Replika, a romantic companionship chatbox so compelling that at least one young man flew from Mexico City to Tampico to show his chatbot the ocean. I wonder whether she appreciated it?

Many folks have robotic pets, from dogs to seals; interacting with those seems to have similar therapeutic results as with real animals, plus no poop to clean up. In Japan, robots are providing care, companionship, and even nursing services to the elderly, theoretically due to human caregiver shortages, though these are in part created by barriers to entry in those fields.

Sex robots are a thing now, too, though all but one of the current crop is female. The male version, Henry, was invented in…California! I’m not sure if he’s mostly marketed to men or woman, though I imagine he swings both ways. Before you assign all the crazies to our state, please know that a doctor writing in The British Medical Journal recently opined that prejudice against sex robots was no different from homophobia or transphobia.

One sexbot entry is programmed to say No to sexual advances and even to shut down if she feels things are not going her way. I’m not buying stock in that company! Men obtaining a sex robot are not looking for any wider diversity in personality types than, say, Compliant, Submissive, or Dominant. Since when do we prefer technology that challenges us? I want my devices to work, instantly, ideally by reading my mind.

Some people think that tech caused widespread loneliness, so it’s only right that tech tries to solve it. How are we doing with that concept? If you think technology is in any way responsible for divisive politics, hate crimes, climate change, widespread and growing NCDs, toxins in our homes and bodies, and an industrial food system that primarily produces non-food, you may have noticed a pattern in its salvation effects.