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The Sensual Machine
Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil is a scientist, entrepreneur and inventor. He deals with speech recognition systems but also writes books. In March 2000, Bill Clinton personally presented him with the National Medal for Technology in honour of
his pioneering achievements and innovative developments in computer science. In "The Sensual Machine", he prophesies the virtualisation of the human body.
----
The first book printed from a moveable type press may have been the Bible, but the century following Gutenberg‘s epochal invention saw a lucrative market for books with more prurient topics. New communication
technologies – the telephone, motion pictures, television, videotape – have always been quick to adopt sexual themes. The Internet is no exception, with 1998 market estimates of adult online entertainment ranging from
$185 million by Forrester Research to $1 billion by Inter@ctive Week. These figures are for customers, mostly men, paying to view and interact with performers – live, recorded, and simulated. One 1998 estimate cited
28,000 web sites that offer sexual entertainment. These figures do not include couples who have expanded their phone sex to include moving pictures via online video conferencing.
CD-ROMs and DVD disks constitute another technology that has been exploited for erotic entertainment. Although the bulk of adult-oriented disks are used as a means for delivering videos with a bit of interactivity thrown in, a new genre of CD-ROM and DVD provides virtual sexual companions that respond to some mouse-administered fondling. Like most first-generation technologies, the effect is less than convincing, but future generations will eliminate some of the kinks, although not the kinkiness. Developers are also working to exploit the force-feedback mouse* so that you can get some sense of what your virtual partner feels like. Late in the first decade of the twenty-first century, virtual reality will enable you to be with your lover – romantic partner, sex worker, or simulated companion – with full visual and auditory realism. You will be able to do anything you want with your companion except touch, admittedly an important limitation. Virtual touch has already been introduced, but the all-enveloping, highly realistic, Visual-auditory-tactile virtual environment will not be perfected until the second decade of the twenty-first century. At this point, virtual sex
becomes a viable competitor to the real thing. Couples will be able to engage in virtual sex regardless of their physical proximity. Even when proximate, virtual sex will be better in some ways and certainly safer. Virtual sex
will provide sensations that are more intense and pleasurable than conventional sex, as well as physical experiences that currently do not exist. Virtual sex is also the ultimate in safe sex, as there is no risk of
pregnancy or transmission of disease.
Today, lovers may fantasize their partners to be someone else, but users of virtual sex communication will not need as much imagination. You will be able to change the physical appearance and other characteristics of both 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. Group sex will take on a new meaning in that more than one person can simultaneously share the experience of one partner. Since multiple real people cannot all control the movements of one virtual partner, there needs to be a way of sharing the decision making of what the one virtual body is doing. Each participant sharing a virtual body would have the same visual, auditory, and tactile experience, with shared control of their shared virtual body (perhaps the one virtual body will reflect a consensus of the attempted movements of the multiple participants). A whole audience of people – who may be geographically dispersed – could share one virtual body
while engaged in a sexual experience with one performer. Prostitution will be free of health risks, as will virtual sex in general. Using wireless, very-high-bandwidth communication technologies, neither sex workers nor their patrons need leave their homes. Virtual prostitution is likely to be legally tolerated, at least to a far greater extent than real prostitution is today, as the virtual variety will be impossible to monitor or control. With the risks of disease and violence having been eliminated, there will be far less rationale for proscribing it.
Sex workers will have competition from simulated – computer generated – partners. In the early stages, „real“ human virtual partners are likely to be more realistic than simulated virtual partners, but that will change over time. Of course, once the simulated virtual partner is as capable, sensual, and responsive as a real human virtual partner, who’s to say that the simulated virtual partner isn’t a real, albeit virtual, person? Is virtual rape possible? In the purely physical sense, probably not. Virtual reality will have a means for users to immediately terminate their experience. Emotional and other means of persuasion and pressure are another matter.
How will such an extensive array of sexual choices and opportunities affect the institution of marriage and the concept of commitment in a relationship? The technology of virtual sex will introduce an array of slippery slopes,
and the definition of a monogamous relationship will become far less clear. Some people will feel that access to intense sexual experiences at the click of a mental button will destroy the concept of a sexually committed
relationship. Others will argue, as proponents of sexual entertainment and services do today, that such diversions are healthy outlets and serve to maintain healthy relationships. Clearly, couples will need to reach
their own understandings, but drawing clear lines will become difficult with the level of privacy that this future technology affords. It is likely that society will accept practices and activities in the virtual arena that it frowns on
in the physical world, as the consequences of virtual activities are often (although not always) easier to undo. In addition to direct sensual and sexual contact, virtual reality will be a great place for romance in general. Stroll
with your lover along a virtual Champs-Elysées, take a walk along a virtual Cancún beach, mingle with the animals in a simulated Mozambique game reserve. Your whole relationship can be in Cyberland.
Virtual reality using an external visual-auditory-haptic interface is not the only technology that will transform the nature of sexuality in the twenty-first century. Sexual robots – sexbots – will become popular by the beginning of the third decade of the new century. Today, the idea of intimate relations with a robot or doll is not generally appealing because robots and dolls are so, well, inanimate. But that will change as robots gain the softness, intelligence, pliancy, and passion of their human creators. (By the end of the twenty-first century, there won’t be
a clear difference between humans and robots. What, after all, is the difference between a human who has upgraded her body and brain using new nanotechnology and computational technologies, and a robot who has
gained an intelligence and sensuality surpassing her human creators?)
By the fourth decade, we will move to an era of virtual experiences through internal neural implants. With this technology, you will be able to have almost any kind of experience with just about anyone, real or imagined, at
any time. It’s just like today’s online chat rooms, except that you don’t need any equipment that’s not already in your head, and you can do a lot more than just chat. You won’t be restricted by the limitations of your natural
body as you and your partners can take on any virtual physical form. Many new types of experiences will become possible: A man can feel what it is like to be a woman, and vice versa. Indeed, there’s no reason why you can’t be both at the same time, making real, or at least virtually real, our solitary fantasies. And then, of course, in the last half of the century, there will be the nanobot swarms – good old sexy Utility Fog, for example. The nanobot swarms can instantly take on any form and emulate any sort of appearance, intelligence, and personality that you or it desires – the human form, say, if that’s what turns you on. * A force-feedback mouse makes it possible to somehow „feel“ experiences in virtual reality – by letting it’s user sense the structure of a surface.
Excerpt from: Ray Kurzweil: The Age of Spiritual Machines. When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.
Viking Penguin, 1999.
by Ray Kurzweil, 1999.
Published in the UK by Orion Business Books.
The Sensual Machine
Ray Kurzweil
Ray Kurzweil is a scientist, entrepreneur and inventor. He deals with speech recognition systems but also writes books. In March 2000, Bill Clinton personally presented him with the National Medal for Technology in honour of
his pioneering achievements and innovative developments in computer science. In "The Sensual Machine", he prophesies the virtualisation of the human body.
----
The first book printed from a moveable type press may have been the Bible, but the century following Gutenberg‘s epochal invention saw a lucrative market for books with more prurient topics. New communication
technologies – the telephone, motion pictures, television, videotape – have always been quick to adopt sexual themes. The Internet is no exception, with 1998 market estimates of adult online entertainment ranging from
$185 million by Forrester Research to $1 billion by Inter@ctive Week. These figures are for customers, mostly men, paying to view and interact with performers – live, recorded, and simulated. One 1998 estimate cited
28,000 web sites that offer sexual entertainment. These figures do not include couples who have expanded their phone sex to include moving pictures via online video conferencing.
CD-ROMs and DVD disks constitute another technology that has been exploited for erotic entertainment. Although the bulk of adult-oriented disks are used as a means for delivering videos with a bit of interactivity thrown in, a new genre of CD-ROM and DVD provides virtual sexual companions that respond to some mouse-administered fondling. Like most first-generation technologies, the effect is less than convincing, but future generations will eliminate some of the kinks, although not the kinkiness. Developers are also working to exploit the force-feedback mouse* so that you can get some sense of what your virtual partner feels like. Late in the first decade of the twenty-first century, virtual reality will enable you to be with your lover – romantic partner, sex worker, or simulated companion – with full visual and auditory realism. You will be able to do anything you want with your companion except touch, admittedly an important limitation. Virtual touch has already been introduced, but the all-enveloping, highly realistic, Visual-auditory-tactile virtual environment will not be perfected until the second decade of the twenty-first century. At this point, virtual sex
becomes a viable competitor to the real thing. Couples will be able to engage in virtual sex regardless of their physical proximity. Even when proximate, virtual sex will be better in some ways and certainly safer. Virtual sex
will provide sensations that are more intense and pleasurable than conventional sex, as well as physical experiences that currently do not exist. Virtual sex is also the ultimate in safe sex, as there is no risk of
pregnancy or transmission of disease.
Today, lovers may fantasize their partners to be someone else, but users of virtual sex communication will not need as much imagination. You will be able to change the physical appearance and other characteristics of both 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. Group sex will take on a new meaning in that more than one person can simultaneously share the experience of one partner. Since multiple real people cannot all control the movements of one virtual partner, there needs to be a way of sharing the decision making of what the one virtual body is doing. Each participant sharing a virtual body would have the same visual, auditory, and tactile experience, with shared control of their shared virtual body (perhaps the one virtual body will reflect a consensus of the attempted movements of the multiple participants). A whole audience of people – who may be geographically dispersed – could share one virtual body
while engaged in a sexual experience with one performer. Prostitution will be free of health risks, as will virtual sex in general. Using wireless, very-high-bandwidth communication technologies, neither sex workers nor their patrons need leave their homes. Virtual prostitution is likely to be legally tolerated, at least to a far greater extent than real prostitution is today, as the virtual variety will be impossible to monitor or control. With the risks of disease and violence having been eliminated, there will be far less rationale for proscribing it.
Sex workers will have competition from simulated – computer generated – partners. In the early stages, „real“ human virtual partners are likely to be more realistic than simulated virtual partners, but that will change over time. Of course, once the simulated virtual partner is as capable, sensual, and responsive as a real human virtual partner, who’s to say that the simulated virtual partner isn’t a real, albeit virtual, person? Is virtual rape possible? In the purely physical sense, probably not. Virtual reality will have a means for users to immediately terminate their experience. Emotional and other means of persuasion and pressure are another matter.
How will such an extensive array of sexual choices and opportunities affect the institution of marriage and the concept of commitment in a relationship? The technology of virtual sex will introduce an array of slippery slopes,
and the definition of a monogamous relationship will become far less clear. Some people will feel that access to intense sexual experiences at the click of a mental button will destroy the concept of a sexually committed
relationship. Others will argue, as proponents of sexual entertainment and services do today, that such diversions are healthy outlets and serve to maintain healthy relationships. Clearly, couples will need to reach
their own understandings, but drawing clear lines will become difficult with the level of privacy that this future technology affords. It is likely that society will accept practices and activities in the virtual arena that it frowns on
in the physical world, as the consequences of virtual activities are often (although not always) easier to undo. In addition to direct sensual and sexual contact, virtual reality will be a great place for romance in general. Stroll
with your lover along a virtual Champs-Elysées, take a walk along a virtual Cancún beach, mingle with the animals in a simulated Mozambique game reserve. Your whole relationship can be in Cyberland.
Virtual reality using an external visual-auditory-haptic interface is not the only technology that will transform the nature of sexuality in the twenty-first century. Sexual robots – sexbots – will become popular by the beginning of the third decade of the new century. Today, the idea of intimate relations with a robot or doll is not generally appealing because robots and dolls are so, well, inanimate. But that will change as robots gain the softness, intelligence, pliancy, and passion of their human creators. (By the end of the twenty-first century, there won’t be
a clear difference between humans and robots. What, after all, is the difference between a human who has upgraded her body and brain using new nanotechnology and computational technologies, and a robot who has
gained an intelligence and sensuality surpassing her human creators?)
By the fourth decade, we will move to an era of virtual experiences through internal neural implants. With this technology, you will be able to have almost any kind of experience with just about anyone, real or imagined, at
any time. It’s just like today’s online chat rooms, except that you don’t need any equipment that’s not already in your head, and you can do a lot more than just chat. You won’t be restricted by the limitations of your natural
body as you and your partners can take on any virtual physical form. Many new types of experiences will become possible: A man can feel what it is like to be a woman, and vice versa. Indeed, there’s no reason why you can’t be both at the same time, making real, or at least virtually real, our solitary fantasies. And then, of course, in the last half of the century, there will be the nanobot swarms – good old sexy Utility Fog, for example. The nanobot swarms can instantly take on any form and emulate any sort of appearance, intelligence, and personality that you or it desires – the human form, say, if that’s what turns you on. * A force-feedback mouse makes it possible to somehow „feel“ experiences in virtual reality – by letting it’s user sense the structure of a surface.
Excerpt from: Ray Kurzweil: The Age of Spiritual Machines. When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence.
Viking Penguin, 1999.
by Ray Kurzweil, 1999.
Published in the UK by Orion Business Books.
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