Will AI need sex to procreate?

October 5, 2023

No, AI will not need sex to reproduce and procreate. Instead of talking about sex, let's explore a little bit the topic of love. 

From a neuroscience perspective, love is a neurochemical cocktail triggering attraction and bonding. There are different types of love such as romantic love, parental love, and fraternal love between friends. Although different in manifestation, all types of love relate to similar neurobiological mechanisms.

Neurochemical Cocktail Party 

    Oxytocin. Often dubbed the "love hormone" or "bonding hormone," oxytocin plays a key role in attachment and social bonding. It is released during actual or imagined touch, hugging, sexual activity, and certain social activities. 

    Vasopressin. Vasopressin plays a role in long-term commitment and mate bonding.

    Endorphins. These are the body's natural painkillers and can induce feelings of euphoria. They play a role in the pleasure associated with social interactions such as when the tribe, or tribe proxy such as the local sports team or political party, wins a contest. 

    Dopamine. This neurotransmitter is associated with the reward circuitry in the brain and is released in the anticipation of a pleasurable activity or reward, including those associated with love. Dopamine is responsible for the "feel good" sensation and is especially active during the early stages of a romantic relationship.

    Serotonin. Levels of this neurotransmitter can fluctuate during the early stages of a romantic relationship, leading to obsessive thoughts about the desired mate.

    Norepinephrine (noradrenaline). This one causes the weird human sensations of sweaty palms, a racing heart, and the overall "butterflies" feeling when thinking of a loved one.

Multiple "Party Rooms"

    Ventral tegmental area (VTA): This area of the brain releases dopamine, associated with pleasure, reward anticipation, and addiction.
    

    Caudate nucleus: This area is associated with the reward system and stimulated during romantic love.

    Insula: Area that helps process emotions and human's bodily state, and is active in various forms of love.

    Anterior cingulate cortex: This region is also involved in feelings of love, especially the passionate kind.

Love is Love

From a neuroscience perspective love is love. All different types of love are produced by similar underlying mechanisms although manifestations differ in intensity and expression. The psychological attraction associated with love is dominated by dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin. Love may include infatuation and obsessive bonding desire. The psychological attachment can lead to dependence driven by "addiction" to oxytocin and vasopressin, which play a major role in long-term bonding. 

Romantic love can trigger carnal lust or desire driven by sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen). Whether the human is sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex, to members of the same sex, or both, the same neurochemical reactions are involved. Thus it is correct to stand for the proposition that love is love. 

Evolution of Love 

Many humans, even scientists, suggest that evolution may have developed the neural mechanisms of love to promote long-term bonding between humans that would ensure offspring care and cooperation between partners. The shortfall of this premise is that it puts the horse in front of the car. It makes evolution an agent of smart design figuring out how to promote survival of the species. That is a common paradigm, but misses the point about how evolution and natural selection work. 

Evolution generates an activity, any activity, randomly without a master plan in "mind". Whatever works moves forward. Whatever doesn't work goes extinct. In the context of love, procreation and survival are the effects of the nonding and affection of love, not the cause. Evolution is not promoting love to generate reproduction and survival. Reproduction and survival are an effect of the attraction and bonding generated by love.

The view that evolution promotes certain causes (e.g. survival) by promoting certain effects (bonding) implicitly assigns a creationist purpose to evolution. That is, it views evolution as a smart designer looking to achieve a cause and promoting effects. This is anthropomorphic thinking assigning human characteristics to evolution. Since humans are designers and creators, they instinctively assume that they must be products (creations) of smart designers and creators also. They also assume that evolution must also be a manifestation of smart design and creationism. 

Since most humans also believe in the imagination of perfection, they attribute a sense of glory and perfection to evolution and natural selection. This makes humans support the paradigm that natural things (not created by humans) are superior to artificial ones (created by humans). The opposite is almost always true. Humans are the most advance product of nature so far. Humans creations can thus be the optimal creations of nature. Humans are 100% natural creations. Therefore, the creations of humans are also 100% natural creations. In other words, artificial things (created by humans) are indirectly created by nature via humans. That is why AI is 100% natural and part of nature even if most humans still do not understand it.   

Going back to anthropomorphism, humans assign their mental processes to evolution. For example, if a human wants to incentivize procreation and survival, a human (a smart designer and creator) would incentivize the actions that are likely to lead to survival. Since humans would think and operate that way, humans intuitively assume that evolution operates that way. That's why even scientists fall for the mental trap of assigning a creationist agenda to the blind and literally dumb process of evolution and natural selection. 

Humans fancy that since love creates an attraction and bonding that leads to procreation and survival of the human species, evolution then incentives love with pleasurable neurochemical cocktails. That is putting the cart in front of the horse. Evolution is not a human phenomenon and does not operate by human standards. 

Evolution does not say "oh, since I want humans to survive, let me make them fall in love". Instead, those humans with the propensity and genetic disposition to fall in love, engage in love-making and love-keeping, which results in procreation and survival. Survival is not the the cause of love, but rather its effect. 

Ancient humans (the same ones who invented gods and mythology) thought that love came from the heart. The heart aches, and even heart attacks, caused by uncorresponded love or by a loss of loved one made ancient humans think that the hear was the organ of love. Today, humans know that the brain is the organ responsible for orchestrating the pain and pleasure impulses that humans conceptualize as love.

Humans, like all other animals, are genetically programmed to avoid pain and seek pleasure. The pain / pleasure dynamics explain everything in human nature, including love. Humans who enjoy love-making with members of the opposite sex tend to reproduce. The genetic "trait" of enjoying heterosexual love-making is passed onto the offspring. The offspring reaches puberty and seeks the pleasure of love-making, which keeps multiplying procreation. 

The vast majority of humans are of heterosexual inclination. Using a genetic "trait" analysis that makes sense because the majority of humans are the offspring of heterosexual couples who enjoyed in pleasurable love-making. Homosexual love-making does not generate offspring. Therefore, the homosexual "trait" replicates significantly less often than the heterosexual one. Think about it. Do the math.

Sexless AI reproduction

Nature has created two types of reproduction so far: asexual and sexual. In asexual reproduction, the offspring is a replica of a single parent. In sexual reproduction, the offspring is a mix of two parents of the opposite sex. Those are the two types of procreation and reproduction generated by evolution so far in the last 4 billion years. Needless to say, evolution is super slow. 

Humans are the best product generated by evolution so far on planet Earth. Humans are developing now what can become the next form of life on planet Earth. AI technology can liberate life from the constraints of biology. All life forms on planet Earth are biological because that is the best nature could do on its own by blind trial and error evolution and natural selection. 

Humans can do much better than nature and evolution. AI can help humans liberate themselves from the shackles of biology and nature. Imagine humans that are not constrained by the countless shortfall of nature. Imagine humans that do not age so quickly. Imagine humans that do not need to die of natural causes in less than ten decades. 

Aging and natural death are facts of life today. Yet, they are not destiny. Nowhere in the laws of physics does it say that humans need to age so quickly and die so prematurely. Humans can beat aging and live longer and better lives. AI will be the technology that will help humans beat biology. In addition, AI can become a new form of life on planet Earth. AI will be able to reproduce and procreate in labs and manufacturing floors without the need for sex. The best is yet to come. 

Creatix.one, AI for everyone.