In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

No, people, no.

Chally

Why is this a thing that keeps happening? Via The Indian Express, scientists in Germany have invented a robot with “model-like” looks.

The amazing hi-tech Artificial Intelligence Lightweight Android (AILA) robot, called fembot, can not only navigate, think for herself and lift heavy objects — but she also has got great hair, say its developers.

Well. The hair is the important thing. Also: fembot?

Firstly, people, it’s been done, and, secondly, more importantly, why would you want to do that at all? Why the need to gender robots? Surely it isn’t out of some misplaced desire to create a woman of your very own to mindlessly serve your every need? Oh. Wait. Such ideas, they are best placed far away from all women and, actually, anyone.

(Oh, Jill, I bet you thought I was joking when I said I was going to write a post about this.)

38 thoughts on No, people, no.

  2. The thing is that I *was* joking, but when I saw that you saw that it was a joke, I had to make it happen, because I am perverse like that.

  3. I feel that there is a whole different (gendered) version of The Matrix in here somewhere. A seriously horrifying version.

  5. As someone who does research in computer science (but not robotics) I can see how it could be interesting to create robots that resemble different genders, ages, races, etc. For example the makers of the “Geminoid” robots recently made the news for creating the first Geminoid robot that isn’t modeled after a Japanese person, which will be used for research on human-computer interaction, and to study cultural differences in how people relate to robots.

    Note that I’m just trying to defend why someone might want to make a gendered robot in general, I’m not defending this one in particular.

  6. ADHD PhD, as someone with a father who works at firm that does some AI stuff (I’m hopeless with computers so I couldn’t tell you much more than that, except that he sends me lots of links about AI and robots and such), I do agree with you. I’ve read some interesting articles on that sort of thing.

    But it’s still creepy as hell that so many developers seem bent on developing the “perfect” (ie. robotic slave) woman.

  7. I saw that robot. It’s totally amazing. In fact, the absolutely least amazing thing about it is it’s hair. I mean, we’ve had wig technology for how long? Centuries? Millenia?

  8. I think I voted for a troll wanting this in the last round of FNTT. Maybe we need to let him know his wish came true? I wonder if the dudebros would prefer these robots to the “SATANIC” American women?

    I would hope so…. it spares the womenfolk they might have otherwise attempted to associate with.

  11. Passive, physically and mentally pliant, inferior, child-like, utterly controllable, obedient female?

    Plus column: guys who find that a turn-on will get fembots instead of hitting on real women just trying to read their book on the bus.
    Minus column: perpetuates patriarchal system that, among other things, basically tells guys to find such females a turn-on. Also, patriarchal system will be able to market ‘perfect’ female none of us flesh-and-bone types can ever match, making us all failures-as-women forever and ever, amen, and thereby in need of whatever beauty-compliant product is being sold today to mask our flaws.

    Damn. That’s a lot of minus for not getting hit on while riding the bus. Which is never guaranteed anyway.

  12. Hmm. Perhaps they’re making them to be the ultimate ambulatory uterus? Imagine that, looks like a woman, walks and talks like a woman, but with none of those pesky notions like ‘choice’ or ‘freedom’ cluttering up her pretty little head. Her head will be put to proper use, to store washing-up liquid and wet wipes.

    Sounds like a Neocon Foetus-Fetishist’s ideal woman.

  15. “Ladies”? Been called a few things in my time…

    While I have no need of mandroids (or man-ything male) in my life, I believe that’s a need that many women (and a good percentage of men) are able to meet with ten minutes of online shopping, a discreet card payment, and a box of AA batteries. I can’t quite put my finger on any other reason a manbot would be necessary, or preferable to any other kind of AI.

  16. Comrade Kevin:
    Cue Austin Powers references NOW.

    Trying so hard to grit my teeth and not make the reference…

    Oh god I can’t hold this one back though: The Futurama references.
    They have fembots. Their lot in robo-life is not a good one.

    At this point between all the crude comedy uses of the word “Fembot” I cannot possibly take seriously any scientific advancement that uses the phrase.


  18. Plus column:guys who find that a turn-on will get fembots instead of hitting on real women just trying to read their book on the bus.

  19. reminds me of The Stepford Wives. I always wanted a sequel to that where the sons of the men in that town got to marriage age and wanted the town fathers to provide them with compliant robot replacements for their brides – which would have required them to kill their own daughters for the sake of the patriarchy.

  20. I’m guessing they chose it either due to the reactions of test groups (are ‘female’ bots less intimidating than ‘male’ bots to the people they surveryed?) or they just wanted to make their robot sexy.

    I’d put a bit of money on both, as well as some on how they decided to approach the uncanny valley effect. Chances are a robot that was gendered got a better response. Robot as reflection of patriarchy?

  21. “Firstly, people, it’s been done, and, secondly, more importantly, why would you want to do that at all? Why the need to gender robots?”

    For science!

    🙂

  22. I do not see gendered robots as a concept problematic at all. When you design an interactive robot, it is very reasonable to choose an artificial personality to create a better interactive experience. This can then be strengthened by adding visual cues.
    Conforming to societal stereotypes helps to create this illusion of personality by using our reflexive associations.

    Sexualized robots I would see as more problematic, but from the article that does not seem to be the case here.

  23. I’ve been to Cebit [where this robot was presented] and, to be fair, no one at the booth called it a “fembot” (maybe they only hawked that angle to male journalists ??)
    BUT! Anyone who raves about “her” “hair” must be seriously deluded. Have a look …

  25. Does pretty hair signify that it has a vagina? I mean, isn’t that the most important part of a fembot?

  26. Anyone read the play R.U.R. that brought us the word robot?

    I saw it performed a few years ago. Early on, someone asked “Why are there female robots?” and the answer was because people were used to seeing men in some jobs, women in others.

    One of the scientists had the hots for the wife of the lead scientist and he built a robot to resemble her. A robotic blow-up doll. She was described as “stupid and useless” by her creator.

    This article reminded me of the play.

  27. Haha, that think looks like Rosie from the Jetsons. It is terra-bad looking I can’t stop laughing.
    .
    Even in Austin Power fembots bots always try and kill the humans. I don’t trust it…. not one bit….

  29. It’s funny that for decades, American imagination regarding robots was basically that they would all be male, by default, unless they were a Super Special Female Robot. But because Japanese culture handles the question somewhat differently, all of their robots default to female unless they’re Super Special Male Robots (or animated suits of armor, which Americans often interpret as “giant robots” but they’re actually more like computer-assisted tanks that walk), and the Japanese are doing all the cutting edge robotics work, apparently we are going to get female humanoid robots long before we get male ones.

    Of course, Japanese stories about robots are *just* as rife with “robot develops self-awareness, rebels against her programming, seeks to become an independent person” as American stories about robots. So it’s not like anyone is going to stop at animated Real Dolls; we may go there first, but the development of AI is going to be done in robots as well as in computers, and if what we have lying around is female robots, the first sentient android will probably be a gynoid.

    I am honestly not worried about this. Actually, having mindless non-self-aware creatures around for the kind of men who want women to be mindless non-self-aware creatures to use would free the rest of us up to pursue non-misogynists, and of course, since a robot cannot breed, this means the misogynists who really wanted a mindless fembot will stop having sons they can train in misogyny and daughters whose spirits they can crush. (And misogynist men aren’t likely to admit to themselves or anyone else that they really *want* kids because wanting kids is girly.) Sure, it probably cuts the pool of available men by a lot, but frankly I feel all women would be better off sharing a guy who is genuinely respectful of women than having a man all to themselves who thinks they ought to be his mindless servant. (Or, not having a man at all. Being single never killed anyone.) But seriously, robots that look female are no more a threat to actual women than robots that look male would ever have been to men.

  30. “Oh god I can’t hold this one back though: The Futurama references.
    They have fembots. Their lot in robo-life is not a good one.”

    Robo-life in general isn’t all that great in Futurama. I mean, robots have the vote, and they still can’t go more than four episodes without involuntary upgrades, memory-wipes/personality alterations/anything Momcorp ever does, massive deactivations, disposals, and recyclings, etc. And that’s before you even get to killbots.

  31. robots that look female are no more a threat to actual women than robots that look male would ever have been to men

    I’m not threatened. I’m disgusted by the theme, mentioned in the post, of some misplaced desire to create a woman of your very own to mindlessly serve your every need?

  33. Chally. Chally, you have read my mind. At work this evening I was talking to my boss and he mentioned his love for Transformers (the movie) and that he thought it was stupid that some people were annoyed that there were female robots. I responded that why gender robots at all? Robots should be gender-neutral! He joked about who would do the voices for the gender-neutral robots and I replied “They’re robots! Anyone can do the voices and they can alter them!”

    Seriously, why make gendered robots, whhhhyyyyyyy?

  34. Can we call it the ‘Femmefatalatron’ as in Lem?

    The whole gendered robot thing just makes me think of Lem’s “Washing Machine Tragedy” story, where they make washing machines that will also pick up your laundry off the floor, and make them look human, and sexy, and eventually end up with ‘washing machines’ that are actually interactive sex toys that are capable of washing four handkerchieves or one pillowcase at a time. Hehe!

  35. This robot “Aila” is pretty inoffensive. Just seems to be a normal robot with a “Darla Cratch” -esque look. The creepy one is the robot “aiko.” A google search of this thing WILL be disturbing. Quote by its creator: “Aiko is the only female that I’ve known that gains weight every month, but her figure stays the same!” UGH! Aila was made to perceive objects and action going on, handle objects, etc while Aiko was made to perceive “gentle vs aggressive touch” to have very soft skin, socialize and hopefully in the future to do chores. Aila is generally referred to as “it” while Aiko is referred to as “she”. So, Aila is a minimally gendered “female” robot, whereas Aiko is a “gynoid”, a robot designed solely to be “female”.

  36. A lot of Men’s Rights activists are utterly obsessed with the notion that ‘fembots” and/or “virtual reality girls” will replace women — or at the very least destroy feminism — in 10 to 20 years.

    I was going to post a link to a blog post I did on the subject, but then I remembered that the guy I was quoting was one of the Feministe Top Trolls. What the heck, here it is anyway.

    But this stuff is everywhere on the misogynistic web sites I watch. Here’s an actual active thread on one Men Going Their Own Way forum on “virtual reality girls” replacing women. (Warning: over-the-top misogyny.)

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