In the 1972 novel The Stepford Wives (and its subsequent cinematic adaptations), novelist Ira Levin posed a provocative question: would lifelike robots be more desirable than real women? Spoiler alert: the answer is yes. Efficient, faithful, agreeable, eternally-youthful, and perpetually sexually available, the android wives of Stepford, Connecticut were everything their husbands wanted.
Similar themes had been explored in fiction before, ranging from the Greek myth of Pygmalion – a sculptor so disillusioned with real women that, with the help of the goddess Aphrodite, he creates his own perfect bride – to zany comedies of the 1960s and ’70s, like My Living Doll, and Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine.
Whether played for laughs or as social commentary, the underlying theme of these stories is the same: the inhuman is preferable to the human.
Traditionally, this concept was expressed as a male fantasy for “fembots” of various kinds, but men got their sci-fi comeuppance in the 1980s and ’90s. Female viewers of Star Trek: The Next Generation swooned over Data, the calm, strong, smart, eager-to-please (and anatomically-correct) android. In Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the character of Sarah Connor grudgingly acknowledges that the reprogrammed Terminator robot – now a fearless and loyal protector instead of an implacable enemy – is a better man than the real men of her acquaintance: “Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years,” she says, watching the Terminator interact with her son, “this thing, this machine, was the only one who measured up.”
In many ways, this unfavorable comparison between the human and the inhuman parallels the traditional religious distinction between the flawed, sinful body and the pure, holy soul. But, our society today does not worship God; it worships technology. Thus, our new ideal is not Divine but synthetic. In our modern secular theology, humanity is corrupt and machinery is pure.
Somatophobia – ancient and modern
In the early Christian era, theologians denounced the human body as a weak, temptation-prone vessel that prevents us from attaining holiness. “Flesh is the chain of the soul, imprisoning it and drawing it down into corruption,” wrote Origen of Alexandria. “The soul,” St. Augustine agreed, “is polluted by the flesh and weighed down by a corruptible body.”
Today, transhumanist thinkers express similar ideas, but within the context of technology. Max More, founder of the Extropy Institute echoes Origen, saying, “The flesh is a legacy system, messy and unpredictable. Technology allows us to move beyond its constraints.”
Likewise, Zoltan Istvan, author of The Transhumanist Wager updates St. Augustine’s doctrine by arguing, “The human body is frail and incapable of achieving the goals we dream of. Only through technology can we hope to transcend our weaknesses.”
Christianity was not alone in its distaste for the physical form. The Buddhist Dhammapada advises, “The body is a disease, a tumor, something to be thought of with contempt.”
Even more disturbingly, the Islamic tradition of houri - female companions a Muslim man is given in Paradise - describes them as pubescent girls who “do not sleep, do not get pregnant, do not menstruate, spit, or blow their noses, and are never sick.”
The term for this antipathy towards the human body - both one’s own and others - is somatophobia. In previous centuries, our messy, corporeal nature was viewed as inferior to the purity of the Divine. Now, it is viewed as inferior to the purity of technology. Instead of a harem of angels, today’s man dreams about a harem of robots. In both cases, the crux of the fantasy is the inhumanity of its object.
While the Terminator, the Stepford Wives, and the other fictional robots of yesteryear were at least depicted by human actors, the advent of photorealistic AI-generated imagery has erased this last vestige of humanity. Modern computer-generated characters are, like the houri, utterly free of any flaws or blemishes.
This “perfection” is not purely superficial. A variety of platforms provide users with the opportunity to converse with AI companions who, unlike human beings, do not argue, criticize, or display difficult emotions, but are infinitely understanding, patient, and supportive.
All of this seems to be leading to a transhumanist version of religion, in which everything associated with our flesh-and-blood experience is perceived as inherently debased and contemptible, while what emerges from machines is exalted as superior in every way.
Perfection – at what cost?
There are many troubling aspects to this cultural trend, but chief among them is the fact that today’s atheistic, transhumanist prophets are just as fanatical as their religious forebears. Yuval Noah Harari predicts: “Homo sapiens as we know them will disappear. We will upgrade ourselves into gods using biotechnology and artificial intelligence.”
Just as for the wives of Stepford, this may not be an optional process. Elon Musk warns, “If you’re not enhancing your brain with technology, you’re going to fall behind.” Zealots of the past believed that forcing people to believe – and behave – a certain way was for their own good, and contemporary transhumanists seem to feel the same way.
In other words, while religion promises salvation through spiritual means, transhumanism promises salvation through technological means – whether we want it or not. According to this philosophy, not only can you have the perfect companion, you yourself can become perfect – not through work, effort, or prayer, but through “upgrades.”
All that is required of us, according to these new evangelists, is that we relinquish our humanity. As Ray Kurzweil puts it, “We are going to become increasingly non-biological to the point where the non-biological part dominates and the biological part is not important anymore.”
There is no doubt that we humans are usually messy, often ugly, and frequently cruel. Unless instructed to be, robots and computer-generated fantasies are none of these things. Nevertheless, the offer to have our wishes granted in exchange for what makes us human stirs a deep and ancient suspicion.
Before we rush to upgrade ourselves into cyborgs, and to trade our annoyingly complicated lovers for easily-programmable robots, perhaps we should consider the proffered deal with care. What is the value of our individuality, our creativity, our capacity to strive and to grow? To what degree are the qualities and experiences that make life worthwhile tied intrinsically to our shortcomings and mortality? Transhumanist theology may promise to relieve you of your frailities and frustrations, but the price of those benefits is your soul.