AI Algorithms May Soon Decide Who Gets Treated for Impotence

There might be a reason “Big Balls” was mining our data.

Pexels | Photo by Any Lane

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Throughout history, doctors have invented ingenious ways to treat impotence. In the Middle Ages, men drank a tonic brewed from mandrake root because it was shaped vaguely like man bits. One problem: it’s also hallucinogenic, so at least you forgot you couldn’t perform.

In the sixteenth century, impotent men were handed a steaming broth of boiled goat testicles. Physicians believed one animal’s virility could be slurped into another mortal. Others prescribed ground blister beetles — sold as aphrodisiacs. In reality, they poisoned the kidneys, burned the bladder, and occasionally killed the user.

Fast-forward to the Victorian age, and society was strapping electrical belts around the pelvis, hoping a jolt might coax nature into compliance. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they just left you with a limp and a lightly smoked ham where your genitals used to be.

In the early 1900s, doctors got really desperate. In 1920, Serge Voronoff famously transplanted monkey testicle tissue into men, promising eternal virility. Thank god that one didn’t work, or men’s dating profiles today would read, “Divorced, enjoys long walks, gigantic monkey nuts.”

Advertising (the fear factor) made treatments worse. Between 1918 and 1928, radioactive tonics, such as “Radithor,” promised eternal vigor…until customers began losing their jaws along with their erections. Men might not get a hard-on, but they did glow in the dark.

Today, we’re blessed with proven options: Viagra, Cialis, penile implants, hormone therapies, vacuum devices that don’t require stolen bicycle parts, and counseling that tackles the soul, not the spreadsheet.

Unfortunately, in 2026, the above treatments may require the blessing of an algorithm for some patients.