The Transhumanist future of...Sex? + Artificial Womb Tech

BEWD · October 26, 2014, 8:13pm

Came across these two articles, thought I’d share,

Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, journalist, and author of the novel The Transhumanist Wager. He writes an occasional column for Motherboard in which he ruminates on the future beyond natural human ability.

The internet is rife with chatter about the transhumanist age we are entering, where radical science and technology are already changing the way we live. Everything from robotic hearts to personal drones to mind-reading headsets are here. The new tech coming in just a few years will touch nearly every aspect of our lives, including one of the most personal ones: sex.

Mammals use sex as a means to generate offspring, to experience pleasure, and for bonding with partners. Throughout the last few centuries, humans have embraced tools, drugs, and even surgical operations in an attempt to improve sex.

To date, the list of transhumanist-themed tools and apparatuses our species has created for sex is practically endless. Perhaps the best known one is the condom, where descriptions of their use and composition begin to appear in 16th century writings. The writings of 16th century physician Gabriele Falloppio includes one of the first documented references to condoms, and describes them as linen sheaths soaked in a chemical solution. Today, the condom is one of the leading life extension tools in the world, due to the protection it offers from disease, such as HIV.

Over 300,000 Americans underwent breast augmentation via plastic surgery, which typically aims to enhance sex appeal, in 2011. In the last century, one of the most sensationalized applications for sex is Viagra, whose name is almost as recognizable as Coca-Cola or Rolls Royce. Along with other options like Levitra and Cialis, erection drugs have helped return sexual health to millions of men (and their partners) around the world.

Today, sex—and technology for sex—is all around us, 24/7. The internet provides a continual stream of pornography, for better or worse, to millions of users everyday. A Forbes article citing neuroscientist Ogi Ogas says that between July 2009 and July 2010, 13 percent of web searches were for erotic content. It’s not just computers, though. Many people routinely use their cell phones for sexting. And the sex toy industry is a multi-billion dollar business, with thousands of workers and engineers dedicated to it.

Yet, whatever has happened so far in the history of sex is not going to be nearly as exciting or bizarre as what’s coming next. Whether by drugs, technology, or surgery, the future of sex is set to explode. Look for virtual sex and foreplay to become commonplace, where partners are linked into brain wave headsets and virtual reality goggles.

Some will take it further, and use full body haptic suits—a friend of mine called it the future hump suit—to experience full sexual immersion. Virtual worlds and Second Lives will keep people experiencing sexual acts they might not feel comfortable doing in real life—all without the risk of pregnancy or STDs.

I recently was asked by my wife what I wanted for Christmas. I replied: I want an exoskeleton suit. They’re going to be all the rage soon.

Indeed, exoskeleton technology is significantly improving every year. Panasonic is getting ready to sell the first mass-produced robotic exoskeleton for just under $5,000. They are still crude, but in 5-10 years time, they are likely to make us faster runners, stronger climbers, and better athletes. I surmise an entire sporting and recreational culture will develop around them, similar to motorcycles and ATVs. Can you imagine the growing discipline of Parkour in one? Eventually, exoskeleton suits will look like the ones in the blockbuster movie Elysium starring Matt Damon.

But what about sex? Will they help? Yes! Potentially, a lot. Especially for disabled, obese, or unfit persons. Harvard is working on a soft exoskeleton suit. Someday soon, we will strap on exoskeleton suits and put ourselves in sexual positions once only possible for Bikram yoga experts—and then go at it. And we won’t be tiring very easily, either, not with the suits doing much of the work.

Almost as strange is the new internal skeletal stuff being developed, which combines structures inside your body to external artificial limbs. In a recent article for ExtremeTech, engineer and neuroscientist John Hewitt writes:
In order to wield any artificial limb with full strength and confidence we are going to need to plug it in properly, so that it becomes a real part of our musculoskeletal system. Researchers at the Royal National Orthopedic hospital have now created an implant that does just that by interfacing a leg prosthesis directly to your endoskeleton. 
We’ve already seen penile implants and surgical modifications of sexual organs. But this new musculosketelal technology is much more revolutionary. If scientists can connect internal human parts to external bionic parts, (and they’re already connecting robotic arms to the nervous system) then the age of the cyborg is truly here. Surely biohackers will remove body parts and limbs in an attempt to become a stronger, more agile entity.

With those acquisitions will come cyborg sex—something that is sure to be an upgrade to the usual romp. Don’t forget, those robotic fingers on those artificial limbs will soon have sensors that can detect some things, like heat and sweat, far more specifically than biological fingers. In time, every sense of ours will be improved and updated with technology that simply outmatches our biology.

How will this and all the other technologies affect sex for over seven billion people in the future? Probably dramatically—especially when it is combined with microchip implants. Erogenous zones and orgasms are simply the product of chemicals firing in the brain. If scientists can replicate that feeling by firing signals from an implanted chip or a brain wave headset, then it might even be the end of sex altogether. We’d turn on and off endless orgasms with our cell phone (or buzz our partners at will if they’ll allow us).

Implants are becoming more commonplace. Recently, Dr. Theodore Schwartz and a New York Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center team put a cranial implant into an epileptic sufferer to help stop attacks. Other brain implant surgeries are now occurring to fight Alzheimer’s, a disease which affects over five million Americans. It’s not that big of a leap to imagine someone figuring out how to stimulate the sexual pleasure areas in the brain with an implant.

If all this seems crazy, then check out this WiFi-enabled vibrator called Vibease which will become available next month, according to its website. People can leave them in all day long, and enjoy for up to three hours of use whenever they want to. That might make you wonder about a lot of things in the future. Did your date really enjoy the spaghetti you made, or was something else going on?

The human species has come a long way in developing its sexual mores. Thankfully, many societies are philosophically and psychologically freer than ever to enjoy all that sex can be. But technologically, we are just seeing the tip of the iceberg for all for all that is coming, regardless of tastes and desires. Transhumanism has long centered on technologies that grant better health and extended longevity to people, but we shouldn’t forget that it will also make some of our most cherished experiences—like sex—a lot more fun in the future.

However this is what I’m really excited about,

Of all the transhumanist technologies coming in the near future, one stands out that both fascinates and perplexes people. It’s called ectogenesis: raising a fetus outside the human body in an artificial womb.

It has the possibility to change one of the most fundamental acts that most humans experience: the way people go about having children. It also has the possibility to change the way we view the female body and the field of reproductive rights.

Naturally, it’s a social and political minefield.

The term ectogenesis was coined in 1924 by British scientist J.B.S. Haldane. He predicted by 2074 only 30 percent of births would be human births. Science has grown much quicker than he realized, and his take is probably much too conservative. Some futurists like myself (I’m also married to an ObGyn) think ectogenesis will be here in 20 years, and widely used in 30 years around the world.

Read More: A Transhumanist Wants to Teach Kids That Death Is Wrong

It’s not an entirely speculative concept; scientists are actively working on developing the technology, primarily for medical reasons. In an article for Reproductive Health and Social Justice, a daily nonprofit publication providing news and analysis on sexual and reproductive health and justice issues, journalist Soraya Chemaly discussed two leading scientists in the ectogenesis field and their projects:

There are two commonly cited endeavors in progress. Focusing on finding ways to save premature babies, Japanese professor Dr. Yoshinori Kuwabara of Juntendo University, has successfully gestated goat embryos in a machine that holds amniotic fluid in tanks.

On the other end of the process focusing on helping women unable to conceive and gestate babies, is Dr. Helen Hung-Ching Liu, Director of the Reproductive Endocrine Laboratory at the Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility at Cornell University. Quietly, in 2003, she and her team succeeded in growing a mouse embryo, almost to full term, by adding engineered endometrium tissue to a bio-engineered, extra-uterine “scaffold.”

More recently, she grew a human embryo, for ten days in an artificial womb. Her work is limited by legislation that imposes a 14-day limit on research projects of this nature. As complicated as it is, her goal is a functioning external womb.

The ectogenesis technology itself is highly complicated, though somewhat simple looking. Basically, it appears as an amniotic fluid-filled aquarium with a bunch of feeding tubes and monitoring cables attached to a live, developing organism. Those tubes bring the nutrients, oxygen, etc needed to grow an organism and help it survive; the cables monitor everything going on inside the tank. There’s certainly a Matrix feel to it all.

While much of the technology for starting to experiment with artificially growing a human fetus already exists, bona fide human trials are likely at least a decade off, largely due to the murky legal and ethical implications of the controversial concept.

No doubt, propagating the species without the need for the human body sounds insanely far-fetched. And even if it’s achievable, there’s the question of whether people would be comfortable using it. I would argue yes, and the reasons are simple: Besides being painful, laborious, and time consuming, giving birth is still medically dangerous to mothers.

Furthermore, the advent of ectogenesis would mean females would no longer have to solely bear the responsibility of childbirth, or ponder the stressful questions often faced while carrying a child in one’s body for nine months: Is there lead in the house water I drink, potentially affecting my child’s neurological development? Will the flu virus I caught at work damage my baby’s forming body? Did the half glass of wine I drank the other night lower my kid’s potential IQ?

But perhaps an even more important reason has to do with the health of the babies themselves. Natural birth is filled with perils, and ectogenesis could potentially offer a safe alternative. The theory is that every heartbeat, kick, and moment of a fetus’s life could be carefully monitored, from zygote to the moment the baby takes its first breath of air. Every nutrient the fetus gets would be measured, every movement it makes would be filmed, every heartbeat would be analyzed for proper timing.

As with all new technology, traditional biological and social customs could give way to newer practices promising safety, efficiency, and practicality. However, if ectogenesis seems like a slam dunk, it’s not. It’s rife with both philosophical and political concerns.

The most frequent philosophical issue brought up about ectogenesis is how it might change the way society views women. Will the feminine mystique be lost by such an artificial process replacing what’s been long a mainstay of the female domain? My short answer is no; rather, ectogenesis could further unchain women from the home, spare them and extend the age at which women can have children.

Still, some feminists view ectogenesis with skepticism, saying it will hand over women’s sacred birthing ability to science. In an essay in the book Feminist Perspectives in Medical Ethics, Julien S. Murphy, chair of the philosophy department and professor of philosophy at University of Southern Maine, wrote that ectogenesis has sparked “disagreement among feminists.”

The politics are just as complicated; after all, reproductive rights and procreation are some of the most divisive and loaded topics in Washington right now. It’s likely people with conservative social views or certain religious concerns would rally hard against the technology, which threatens to disrupt the symbiotic bond that the sexes have in traditional society.

Some have also suggested an artificial womb leaves a growing fetus without the immediate intimacy its mother’s body provides. Professor and journalist John Nassivera writes in America, The National Catholic Review, “I can tell you that this deprivation is a very serious thing.”

Meanwhile, the pro-ectogenesis argument is that artificial wombs could make life easier and safer for mothers and fetuses, not to mention allow women who have damaged or medically dysfunctional uteruses to bear children. Similarly, some bioethicists have suggested ectogenesis could also free up homosexual couples and single men from having to use surrogate mothers to bear their children.

Regardless what happens in the future, ectogenesis is destined to become one of hottest topics of the transhumanist future, providing a gateway for how our tech-imbued species views itself, and the way our children will enter the sphere of life.

Hmm, maybe we’ll all live to see Feminism not only become declawed, but outright totally irrelevant sometime within the future.

sources:

chadouken · October 26, 2014, 10:33pm

http://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h255/chadouken/get.gif

Shaft_Agent · October 26, 2014, 10:55pm

as a person that was born from a damaged uterus and not supposed to be alive, i welcome our new robot womb overlords.

DoctaMario · October 26, 2014, 11:18pm

So according to the first article seeing a guy with arms like Jax walking down the street could be common in the future.

I can’t imagine the artificial womb taking over a majority of childbirths though. I mean, in cases where the woman has trouble conceiving and carrying a child, or if she’s a career woman and doesn’t really want to take the maternity leave. The act of carrying and delivering a child is one a lot of women place a lot of importance on, so I’d be very surprised if that was the case.

I don’t see what any of this has to do with feminism though. The women that identify the most as feminists are usually against traditional female roles, so they’re probably not having a lot of kids in the first place and you know dudes aren’t lining up to fuck chicks like that in the first place anyway, so…

@chadouken!‌ Dat gif!! xD xD xD

BEWD · October 26, 2014, 11:20pm

Because I’ve seen feminists arguing against artificial womb tech on the grounds it’d divest women of their “last bargaining chip”, namely full control over reproduction.

edit: @DoctaMario better yet I can directly source the quote I’m referring to,

In the near term, most women would almost certainly gestate their children the old-fashioned way, even if they had the choice. “Relatively few people, with tons of money, who are unusual, would use artificial wombs,” says Tong. But even the option of artificial wombs might change the way we view pregnancy, and perhaps the way we view women. Feminist critics of science, particularly those who embrace an “essentialist” view of women, have long claimed that artificial reproductive technologies threaten women’s social status. Australian sociologist Robyn Rowland has argued that the creation of artificial wombs would spell the end of women’s innate power. “We may find ourselves without a product of any kind with which to bargain,” she writes. “We have to ask, if that last power is taken and controlled by men, what role is envisaged for women in the new world? Will women become obsolete?” Rowland and other feminist critics are hardly shrinking violets; they called their 1984 conference on the subject “The Death of the Female.” They view the medical establishment as irredeemably male — a monolithic, misogynistic institution that views women who are not pregnant as, literally, idle machines.

AlphaCommando · October 27, 2014, 4:48am

But if we take away the pain of childbirth, what will womyn have to use in their argument that they’re stronger than men?

Joshkaz · October 27, 2014, 5:12am

Finally. An army of RoboJosh’s I can breed to rule the world.

XthAtGAm3RGuYX · October 27, 2014, 5:57am

In regards to what BEWD quoted:

Ya see if women stopped abusing rape laws, child support policies, ownership divides in divorces, and literally all the other bullshit they get away with, we might not need to look into artificial human reproduction. But no I’m afraid to get my dick wet anymore because they might poke a hole in the condom, claim it wasnt consensual, get me jail time/probation, and then stick me with a bill for a 100k or more in child support over the course of 18 years. Which all of that could be achieved with minimal effort.

You can also point a finger at the feminazi losers on tumblr too. I seen a 20 something girl in the store struggling with what she was carrying yesterday. She was about to drop something. Now, my natural genuine response was going to be “Hey do you need any help with that?”. But then I looked at her again. She seemed like the type with a hair trigger. The following scenario entered my head.

“Hey do you need help with that?”
“No you fucking pig do you think I cant handle this just because Im a woman!?!?!”

Nah bitch you can stay dropping your groceries. I aint about that life. Get a cart next time retard. I’m straight up afraid to approach white women anymore because I feel like they are guarded by a perimeter of verbal/intellectual land mines which could get me kicked in the nuts.

My personal opinion on women in modern America aside, if I ever decide to have kids, this is actually my solution to my greatest fear of having one. My wife dying during child birth. I seen that in a movie once and it scarred me. If that happened to me I would probably end myself. My wife is gone, and I dont think I could bring myself to raise it knowing that this child caused the death of the one person nearest to me. I wouldnt be able to do it. Would give it to adoption and then eat a bullet the next day.

Lord_Raptor · October 27, 2014, 6:14am

Uuuuuuuh yeah.

This is great news for future Trans women, amazing to possibly see stuff like this in my lifetime.

po_pimpus · October 27, 2014, 6:46am

Oh how I weep for the future… Instead of men and women talking things out and coming to an understanding over their natural roles, we’ll just magick away the difficult questions and decisions by growing people in a bag.

***SCIENCE!!

pherai · October 27, 2014, 7:21am

ah yeah, what a shame that future generations will miss out on arguing over gender politics. what the hell would we talk about on SRK anymore? fighting games? pssshhh

orochizoolander · October 27, 2014, 7:29am

Did someone hit your mom in the ovaries with their calf?

Lord_Raptor · October 27, 2014, 7:39am

God forbid we can have people avoid going through SRS & give birth to their own children.

I’m just mindfucked you can see a negative to this.

Shaft_Agent · October 27, 2014, 8:00am

nah, some natural defects. her doctor said she better not have children because they would likely die in utero. i survived-

just to tell you to stop squatting over a mirror to look at your asshole.

Missing_Person · October 27, 2014, 8:25am

I’m still waiting on my three seashells, dammit.

Darklightjg1 · October 27, 2014, 8:37am

Interesting. Though I’m not really looking forward to an influx of cyborgs (I only really sympathize with people who lost limbs in a tragic accident or something). If it becomes as regular a thing as people getting tattoos these days, I’d be creeped out.

The artificial womb thing is good for those who can’t do it themselves, but I imagine most women who are alive today won’t want to have children that way. I think it’ll take a few more new generations of people to not find that too weird to try.

The future is looking pretty unsexy though, regardless of how practical it is.

Sesshomaru_2 · October 27, 2014, 8:40am

Dont be too harsh with him, he was born from a hobbit uterus

Missing_Person · October 27, 2014, 8:42am

Also just saw this.

http://i.imgur.com/wB8GcLC.jpg

po_pimpus · October 27, 2014, 8:43am

Because there’s not enough dumb motherfuckers crying about “equality” and “social justice” already…

Last thing we need is these people having access to a 100% guaranteed way to spread their shitty genes.

Missing_Person · October 27, 2014, 8:43am

God SRK, I’m telling you.