The smartness we’ll set aside for a bit, but as people continue to worry about existential threats from AI, let me suggest that maybe we shouldn’t be so worried about machines that, like Charles Forbin’s supercomputer“Colossus,” want to rule the world. Maybe instead we should be worried about machines that love us, and that we love back.

How can sexy sexbots be an existential threat? Well, we’ve devastated populations of insects like screwflies, fruit flies, and (somewhat less successfully) mosquitoes by saturating them with sexy but sterile specimens to breed with. (This is called the Sterile Insect Technique). The result is a sharp drop in reproduction, and population.

But even there, we’re not reaching full potential. The sterile specimens we use for those eradication efforts are just ordinary screwflies or mosquitoes, not extra-sexy specimens, optimized for attractiveness.

Imagine sexbots – both male and female – that are aren’t just copies of attractive humans, but much more attractive than natural humans.

[I’ve been pondering this issue, too. We’ve seen speculative-fiction writers try to tackle it recently, predictably as horror fantasies like in Ex Machina and Wifelike (sorta). It may present a far more nuanced problem for society, as Glenn posits here. — Ed]