The future of love
Published in Sunday magazine, 2014
Ready for Valentineâs Day? Itâs the day we celebrate the romantic notion that you can love the same person your whole life!
I mean romantic, as opposed to realistic. Because, let me tell you, my friend: by committing ourselves to monogamous relationships with one person (just one! Thatâs half whatâs considered reasonable to help yourself to from a biscuit sampler), we are behaving like sexual anorexics, starving our basic, hardwired hunger.
From a computer scientistâs point of view, forging a face to face connection belongs in the too hard basket. And from a philosopherâs point of view, we are living in an age of such overweening narcissism that we might not be capable of real, scary, grown-up love anyway.
Nevertheless, since our weak minds cling to the delusion of love and our culture obsesses over âcute couplesâ, and since being single can get to feeling like a slow withering of the soul, the question persists: how can we stay in love and be happy?
Last September, ethicist Brian D. Earp and some colleagues at the University of Oxfordâs Centre for Neuroethics co-authored a paper proposing a chemical intervention to a crummy problem we have inherited.
That old âmen just arenât built for monogamyâ cop-out turns out to be backed by data observable across species, and championed by evolutionary psychologists.
âThe engine of natural selection is that you want to maximise reproduction,â Earp says. âWeâre not puppets of our genes, but from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes no sense to have one sexual partner your whole life.â
Things were simpler for our Pleistocene-era ancestors. They lived half as long as we do, roaming around in groups of about 150 relatives, raising their kids communally. And after three or four years, the parenting was done, whereas we live in a more information-rich world, where raising a child to the point where it can fend for itself like the feral kid in Mad Max doesnât really cut it anymore.
(Procrastination being what it is, I could tell you a lot more about this colourful Pleistocene era, with its woolly mammoths, sabre-toothed tigers and other such âmegafaunaâ which we may, in our lifetimes, see ârewildedâ in a Jurassic Park-like situation. Google it if you donât believe me.)
The point is, Pleistocene parents used to be able to get back amongst it very quickly, while todayâs parents are committed to parenting until the child is 16. And even after that, couples are expected to spend decades more as monogamous romantic partners.
Clearly, Earp says, âthereâs a gap to make up between what our human dispositions are like and what we expect of ourselves. The question is how do we make up that difference?â
Currently, we respond to the problem with infidelity (10-54% of wives and 20-72% of husbands) and divorce (around 42% in New Zealand). We go to relationship counselling but plenty of couples donât benefit from it. So Earp suggests we try huffing oxytocin.
Oxytocin is the hormone we naturally produce in situations related to attachment. It floods our system when we orgasm, when we go into labour, when we breastfeed, when we hug. When you come home and see your dog, you get a burst of oxytocin, and your dog does too.
On the face of it, oxytocin seems like a miracle drug for couples counselling. It reduces anxiety and stress (even when couples are discussing a âchronic source of conflict'). It boosts trust, eye contact, empathy and attentiveness. Under the influence of oxytocin, couples remember their good times more readily.
It even improves monogamous impulses: last year, neuroscientists found that after inhaling oxytocin, men in relationships displayed less interest in a pretty female than single men.
But it has a few wacky side effects. Oxytocin can turn the volume up on us-and-them feelings like envy, schadenfreude and ethnocentrism -- it makes people less friendly to strangers than they would otherwise be. For people with aggressive tendencies, oxytocin seems to actually enhance aggressive behaviour. It also brings up more bad memories for those with anxious attachment to their mother.
âOxytocin isnât just this universal enhancer that makes everything more positive, happy and trustworthy,â Earp says. âIt interacts with the person, who they are and what their attachment styles are.â
All the same, for the right people and in the right environment, Earp thinks oxytocin shows promise. âI donât want to have to be constantly spraying something up my nose in order simply to function in my relationship, but if I used it in a counselling session while Iâm learning more productive communication behaviours or something like that, and then I weaned myself off of it but I retained what Iâd learned, that could be very useful.â
But enough of bringing our Pleistocene impulses into the 21st century with experimental chemicals! Hasnât technology already brought us further than that? Set the flux capacitor to 2045, Marty. Where weâre going, we donât need roads!
Dr James Hughes is a sociologist and executive director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies in Connecticut. I wanted to ask him about the possibility of love with an artificial intelligence (AI).
Some futurists predict that, by 2045 or thereabouts, we will experience something called the Singularity, a point when artificial intelligence will overtake human intelligence, and keep improving at an exponential rate, leaving us all in its dust.
Some people find the prospect of AI menacing. Dr Hughes is not one of those people (although he is concerned about the effect it might have on the labour market). He doesnât find the idea of a relationship with a disembodied AI all that outlandish.
For one thing, he says, we already interact with AI a lot. Software that uses algorithms and big data to predict what we want -- Netflix, Google, dating agencies -- are a form of AI. And Hughes says we already know that humans âanthropomorphize and seem to take a great deal of emotional comfort from relationships with technologyâ. In the 1960s, an MIT scientist created a rudimentary chat bot and programmed it with a script for psychotherapy. He was disturbed by how readily people opened up to it.
âThe Roomba is another example: the little circular robot vacuum cleaners that wander around your house and suck up your dirt? People were naming them. They would feel heartbroken if one got broken and theyâd send them back, and if asked âdo you want a replacementâ, theyâd say âNo, I want my one backâ.â
Hughes says the attractions of electronic forms of love and romance are manifold: an electronic partner is constantly available, thereâs less risk of sexually transmitted disease or unwanted pregnancy, and you donât ever have to bicker with your robot lover, unless thatâs what youâre into.
And yes, letâs get to the part you have probably been wondering about: sex with a robot or a remote human, via teledildonics and whatnot, promises to be fulfilling and, according to robot sex expert David Levy, commonplace by 2050.
When it comes to the burden of emotional and sexual engagement in a relationship, technology is already helping pick up the slack: a new sex app developed for Google Glass allows partners to stream each otherâs points of view, can flash up sex advice in flagrante delicto and can even dim the lights. (Can you imagine anything sexier than watching your partner issue a pre-coital voice-activation command to their wifi-enabled home lighting system?)
Researchers are currently programming facial recognition software to help people with autism read emotional cues, so, Hughes says, âWeâre looking at a future where âYour wife seems to be happy right now, but sheâs really mad at youâ suddenly flashes up on your Google Glass.â
Regardless of whether itâs with a human you only connect with in World of Warcraft or a robot, Hughes believes technology will enable unimaginably richer connections. Weâll use haptic technology that responds to touch; facial recognition software that helps read moods, and nano-neural interfacing that enables us to share thoughts and memories.
âThere may be AI in the future who, because of the depth of their programmed understanding of the human mind and emotions, knows you ten times better than anybody else could,â Hughes says.
Ah, but would I feel known? However nice it might be to have a robot lover who can suggest a movie Iâll love, wouldnât I somehow still compartmentalize my feelings for an AI as being of a different, lesser order to what my feelings could be for a human?
Not if you canât tell them apart, Hughes says. A classic test designed by math genius Alan Turing pits an AI against a human intelligence, and asks us to guess which weâre communicating with. âEvery year, we see AI getting higher and higher thresholds of people guessing theyâre human,â Hughes says. âThe interesting thing about the Turing test is lots of humans fail it. There are humans whose interaction and style of communication is such that they canât communicate as fully realised human beings.â
Given how important and universal the experience of love is, philosophers havenât made a very impressive job of explaining its mysteries. In fact, some of the most influential philosophers had abysmal love lives. Nietzsche sprang a proposal on a girl he barely knew, was rejected and died alone. Kierkegaard had a nice girlfriend, but got emo and broke off their engagement. Sartre and De Beauvoir came close with a markedly bohemian relationship - lots of intellectual chats, no fidelity, no marriage, no kids.
So far, so romantic. Then along comes Alain Badiouâs In Praise of Love.
In an interview format, the elderly French philosopher describes love as a sharing of perspectives that creates a new reality, an event as irrevocably life-altering as when Keanu takes the red pill in The Matrix.
Dr Tim Rayner, a philosopher at Sydney-based consultancy Philosophy for Change, has been pondering love ever since he gave a disastrous speech about its essential unknowability at his brotherâs wedding years ago, and he thinks Badiou has come closest to nailing love, on behalf of philosophy.
âBadiou thinks when you fall in love with someone, you see your life again -- not just as it could be, but as it should be.â
âItâs a real world that weâre drawn into,â Rayner says. âItâs not like a window that we can look through and go âthat was interestingâ and move on. We feel compelled to actualize it, because itâs part of who we are.â
Thatâs Badiouâs philosophical ideal of love, but itâs not how he sees things enacted. Rayner says Badiou is especially cranky about people looking for ârisk-freeâ love based on mutual compatibility -- the kind of casual, exploratory relationships orchestrated by dating services, where, if things get tough, itâs easy to walk away. Anyone hoping to make love more convenient, to gain the ecstatic feelings without hazarding any disruption to their life, is missing the point. Love, the only way Badiou would have it, is necessarily fraught.
âItâs a very frightening place to be,â Rayner says. âYouâre violating the sanctity of the ego and putting yourself in a position of vulnerability. But you need to go there to create the common space of love. And since we do live in a fairly egoistic society, for some people, thatâs too much of a leap to make. But if you are going to commit yourself to the love experience, you have to say âmy life is no longer just about me, itâs about us, and everything I do from now on is about strengthening that bondâ.â Then you have to figure out how youâre going to change the world together.
Maybe the new reality you create together is being Hollywoodâs hottest power couple. Maybe itâs doing a really sensational home renovation. For a lot of couples, itâs having kids -- a transformative experience that can have meaning for couples beyond fulfilling an ancestral drive.
Thatâs a traditional perspective, but Rayner says you can experience Badiouâs kind of love outside of a romantic relationship, too. For Badiou, a militant Maoist who agitated in the â68 uprisings, comrades can have a kind of comradely love forged by being engaged in a common struggle. And Rayner thinks colleagues -- workers or artists -- collaborating on a project can feel powerfully bonded by the experience of co-creation.
And if youâre single this Valentineâs Day, take heart: you, too, can experience Badiouâs world-reconfiguring, romantic love, all by yourself.
âWhen you meet another person who just sweeps you off your feet and gives you a sense of how your whole life could be different, often those kinds of relationships are unrequitedâ, Rayner says. âI mean, the best romances are, right?â












