Do Robots Need a Gender?

[Karel]

Oh, Daily Dish, you never disappoint:

http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com ... ender.html

With links:

http://mindhacks.com/2012/08/07/sexism-affects-robots/

http://www.psmag.com/culture-society/se ... bot-43998/

Comments? Questions? Predictable denunciations?

My favourite quote so far: "Personally, I’m all for genderqueer robots. That would really throw a spanner in the works. Or a works in the spanner."

[ministrations]

I think it's funny that the quote, as preposterous as the author thinks it is, could end up being remarkably prescient.

[Karel]

Well, I'm reading the actual scientific article right now.

I have to say that I'm finding the prose to be more captivating than most of what's written in the "Stories" section here.

The sexiest ASFR-related thing I think I've seen in the past year has been those few seconds from that Spanish film, the one that goes unmentioned on this board, the seconds that prompted me to seek out the film in the first place. Specifically, I'm talking about those seconds reproduced in still shots on the wiki, that feature a robot receptionist resembling a pasty, anorexic Catalan flight attendant from the waist up and a vacuum cleaner from the waist down. I didn't even watch the rest of the movie.

Is anyone else at all disillusioned by the way that porn is rushing in, with increasing urgency, to try and fill the gaps in our imagination? I think mine is just fine, thank you very much, against all the odds; but the tropes and aesthetics of porn are like an acid that eats away at it every time I give in.

Frankly we've already arrived at a place that I find plenty fascinating. Had I the money I would gladly throw it down for an HRP-4C. There's increasing talk, reflected in the University of Bielefeld article, of getting around the uncanny valley with humanoid robots by crafting them to look like cartoon characters instead of mimicking real people. To all of you guys and gals out there with an anime fetish, and your significant others, I ask: "Doesn't that sound interesting?" Certainly much more inherently interesting than the puerile conventions of a porno flick.

And yes, I'm weak, and I'm sure I'll keep buying porn (though I'm certainly becoming a lot more discriminating). But, quite honestly, that's not the kind of material that led me here in the first place.

A cheesy, innocent TV show like "Beyond Westworld" still strikes me as being a thousand times more exciting than any XXX video, because it puts me where I, personally, have always wanted to be. That's not necessarily a place where my every sexual whim is gratified by some "perfect" facsimile of a woman; rather, as I imagine it, it's a place where I am made to feel alienated, set adrift amid "empathizing" objects, and where my emotional expectations (including my sexism) will be made into playthings for programmed machines. And I'm excited at the ease with which this can take place, according to the article:

"The female robot was perceived as more suitable for gender-stereotypically female tasks (e.g., tasks related to household and care services)...To facilitate human—robot interaction, the appearance of a robot should be congruent with the estimations of users regarding the robot’s functionalities..."

Fantastic!

Ultimately, I think this is at least as much about masochism as sadism for me; how about for you?

[ministrations]

Interesting points. I have to say, I don't think that fembot porn degrades my idea of the future so much, nor is it a sign of weakness to watch it. It does have one major flaw, in that it (by necessity) focuses on the physical over the emotional. There really hasn't been any interpretation of gynoids so far that has touched me on the emotional level that I imagine actually interacting with one would.

(This isn't a dig at the porn producers, by the way. They've done a good job of appealing to the numerous variations of this fetish. I would love to see a positive, romantic story between a fembot and her so-called owner, but I realize that probably wouldn't sell very well.)

I agree with you about the future, too. I believe that in a real-world future with widespread robot companions, sex will be much less meaningful as a marketing tool (or at least very different), so our other emotions are going to be manipulated a lot more by machines. Given how much we already trust our emotions to artificial objects in today's society, this will probably come along so gradually as to not be a shock to most of us.

[Sthurmovik]

Depends on if one's definition of gender involves physical body characteristics or a certain basket of emotions. For the former you need enough anthropomorphic qualities to be able to use human style body language. For the latter it is highly likely that the emotional makeup of an AI will probably be identified as more male or more female as the human basket of emotions has evolved over millions of years and works pretty well so it is logical that an AI would incorporate some of the same tropes.