The Future of Sex: Androids, VR, and the Orgasm Button | Hacker News Reader

The Future of Sex: Androids, VR, and the Orgasm Button

singularityhub.com

34 pointskkleiner20 comments

Zzzz...the first article I read like this was written in the 1970s. I am so tired of this formula...

Thought you'd seen it all when (someone) did (that thing) (within the last year)? Think again, because (specific technology) is changing the way we (do something) faster than ever before.

Imagine a world where (well known person) does (the same thing with technology). Or where (those kinds of people) do (something else with technology). Or even (well known event) is (different with more technology).

But will things be better or worse? (something) would be awesome. But maybe (something we value) would disappear.

One thing's for sure: before long (repeat half of first paragraph) will seem like (some old example of technology chaning something). And maybe we'll (have some emotion) while we (do something familiar with new technology).

The best (or worst) example I've seen of this kind of lazy journalism was an article in the Economist speculating that musicians might one day take performance-enhancing drugs. You don't say.

Couldn't agree more, I have noticed that the singularity concept has created a great opportunity to write articles.

Take a robotics/biotech idea in development as a single data point, explain a future world where our lives have improved vastly and throw in some Bladerunner pictures.

Real-life scifi == nerd porn.

And I for one - enjoy reading it.

The part of how "New treatments will cure STDs." That's been wished for since before the 70's. Still not there.

Some STDs have been treated with success, e.g. with antibiotics.

And even AIDS victims live vastly longer with the new drugs than before. We just do not have a silver bullet.

With all sincerity, if we could have a button to induce sexual pleasure, would we want it? The root of this article is the promise/expectation/hope of quick, easy, sexual pleasure through the use of technology.

For a quick analogy of what might happen think about what cheap, easy calories are doing to us as a species. Now think about how much more emotionally powerful an orgasm is vs. say, a piece of chocolate...

With all sincerity, if we could have a button to induce sexual pleasure, would we want it?

If people did, masturbation might be common. Since it's not, I guess we have our answer.

Is that sarcasm? I thought that the Internet is for Porn, and the late 20th century was the start of the biggest explosion of...bothers! How the heck do you talk about this stuff without sounding like a /b/tard?

In any case, Internet Porn as it is now is close enough to a button to induce sexual pleasure. The dangerous thing is not producing raw pleasure. It's producing quality sexual experiences. If you could record and replay the experience of having sex with a very desirable partner, in the words of Dennis Miller, this will make Crack look like Sanka.

Given that the promise of sex is such a strong compulsion (there's a reason why advertisers and gangsters gravitate to it) is there any hope of resistance?

How the heck do you talk about this stuff without sounding like a /b/tard?

With sarcasm.

A few years ago (80s?) a group of researchers wired a mouse's orgasm center to a button and made it such that the mouse could press it whenever it wanted. The button next to it would dispense food at the mouse's whim.

Needless to say, the mouse starved itself to death.

Reproduction (or sexual satisfaction) is a more powerful drive than hunger.

I suspect, like the reports of lab-animal drug self-administration, this bit of pseudoscientific folklore is exaggerated.

For details on how studies of rats and cocaine have been misrepresented, see http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=2696 .

I'm having trouble finding the article, but AFAIK this was done at least once on a human volunteer (wiring the pleasure center). The experiment revolved around using positive reinforcement to "cure" homosexuality. Needless to say it was shut down when it became clear just how strong the induced feelings were (the subject became obsessed with the remote).

How can you not click on that link... ;-)

Seriously, I'm impressed that the monkey (rta) only pushed the button for a mere 16 hours a day :-)

I seem to recall a ratty experiment in which lab rats had electrodes inserted into pleasure centres in the brain. They could stimulate the centre through pressing a bar. (Which is what lab rats do best.)

IIRC, the rats pleasured themselves to death, eschewing food and drink, in order the stimulate the pleasure centres.

Most animals don't have sex for very long at a time; I wouldn't be surprised if the pleasure wiring overrides any ability to feel any other urges, because of the rarity (and importance) of its activation. I imagine it would be quite different in the human case; things frequently "interrupt" people.

If VCRs and the web are any indication, robot sex will be a natural follow on to vacuuming floors and welding cars. I recommend Charlie Stross's Saturns Children for sex from the robot's point of view. And Love and Sex with Robots is on my wish list at Amazon. (Not the robot itself, thank you.)

The future is past. The bionic dick was a cure to impotence before the advent of Viagra.

Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) has been predicting this for years.

There seems to be an online sexual revolution going on that I find shocking. ie ... ppl putting themselves on xtube and cam4 doing well.

I mean don't these people have jobs, friends and family?

There is a great Frontline documentary that addresses this on PBS:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/

Basically, the widespread distribution of porn through emerging technologies has caused a huge cultural shift in the US and around the world.

All I can say is nope! :)

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