In 2016, a German nanotechnology institute announced a new invention in the world of artificial insemination: spermbots. During an experimental stage, scientists placed a microscopic metal cylinder around a bull's sperm in order to push it and direct it through magnetic fields toward the egg. This invention of the first spermbot is an attempt to respond to an increasingly frequent perturbation at the moment of human fertilization: low sperm motility.
In 2025, social media offers a massive number of tutorials that explain, step by step, how to make a snack, dress for every occasion, store socks, build muscle, get more customers, or seduce a woman. Google Maps shows us how to get to anywhere in the world, but also to places we already knew how to get to, or simply where we left our car parked. There are cell phone apps that notify us when it's time to breathe, sleep, or drink a glass of water. There are smart watches that, in addition to telling us the time, tell us if we've been sitting too long and invite us to walk around a bit.
Beyond the probable benefits of their utility, I wonder about the partner to whom the world is addressing itself, about the subject that is supposed in this proliferation of tutors. It is increasingly common to find people who say they cannot sleep without first taking medication, have sex without first taking Viagra, or seek pregnancy without first consulting a specialist. The same difficulty is found when it comes to sustaining concentration, a job, or a love affair.
While the horror of reality is nothing new, the deception of modern discourse seems to gravitate toward this point: degrading impossibility into incapacity. This ruins the subject and intensifies the production of prostheses that deny their division.
Sperm with low motility, consumed by various types of cylinders, show how the impossible is treated today: as an incapacity that requires reconfiguration. As the coaches who flood social media in Argentina point out, it is we who do not connect well with our goals, we who have to change our mentality, we who, like spermbots, lack the mobility necessary to reach the egg to which we are driven.
