Study says "humans are sexist towards robots"

[wjbaines]

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/were-s ... ard-robots

Happened upon this news report.

It runs through a few sociological experiments in which humans interact with robots that are coded either "male" or "female" and then quizzed about their interactions with said robots [eg. one involved "security guard" robots that were given male and female names and voices]. The results say that gender stereotypes and characteristics typically associated with one or the other gender are imputed by humans to the asexual robots they interact with if said robots are more-or-less arbitrarily given a gender assignment.

Also has some musings about anthropomorphic machines and the future that could almost have come straight from our beloved Fembotcentral. It's no sneering Cracked.com anti-fembot-lover hit-piece, at least.

[darkbutflashy]

Yeah, interesting. Yet, not unexpected, given the fact a humanoid robot is a stereotype already. Why shouldn't we apply all stereotypes applied to humans to it? Why make an exception for it? Put a kippa on it and people will expect it to be jewish. Geez.

[A.N.N.]

I guess the big question the authors were trying to work with was: Do we try to manipulate the conventions to make changes (presumably for positive social change) or just leverage them "as is" and ride the wave of convenience they provide?

Or in the bigger sense, as written by someone else the real question is:
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them?"

My own answer is probably somewhere between the 2 extremes. Use a little of both for the best effect.

Sorry, it's late and I think I'm getting a little weird...time for bed.