I am trying to decide if robots are going to be a force for feminism. Are algorithms, ladies, really on our side?
The good news is the rise of personal digital assistants, with Siri leading the way. She’s on the iPhone but is also to be embedded into Apple TV, meaning changing the channel will be a question of asking Siri. No more remote control. The Man Machine, the embodiment of machismo on the sofa, patriarchy with buttons, is about to be undermined.
Siri will response to voice commands and let’s hope her software is programmed with an "adjudicator mode". Couples are bound to have tech tiffs. What if he says "football" and she says "Downton Abbey"? What register will Siri side with? Will deeper voices dominate? Can higher voices prevail? Siri had better be careful whether she listens to Her Master’s Voice or Her Mistress’.
Apple’s coders might do well to install a default Siri utterance in the event of indistinguishable channel instructions: "Go to either end of the sofa with a book."
But apart from this, what have robots and algorithms really done for women?
The question comes to mind as robotic chit chat is quite the thing in China at the moment. (Talk about robots, as opposed to "This. Is. Really. Interesting").
An exhibition recently opened in the southern city of Foshan, called China International Internet Plus Exposition. Amongst several robots on display was a dancer; amusing, yes, but a stark reminder of male bias in this field. Men could send the robot onto the dance floor in their stead (and one hopes the creator had the wit to create two robotic left feet, thereby replicating perfectly the general bloke situation).
Travolta-bot embodies the bionic problem. Robots cater for male needs. Let’s face, it most tech creates entertainment: video games; PlayStations. (That may be one category not two, I don’t even know.) It’s mostly tech fishing, ie stuff for men with nothing to do whilst women are off doing other things. Like cooking. Like housework. And there are no robots for that, or other female concerns.
I still have to sort my hair. I still have to groom. I still have to do the ironing. It’s repetitive territory ripe for robotic take-over and if it helps any inventors reading, here’s a female ‘bot bucket list’ (robots I hope will exist before I die):
Sharon bot – a robot that would shampoo and blow dry hair.
Eve Lom bot - a robot that will perform the daily dull but essential cleansing and moisturising routine.
An ironing algorithm.
An algorithm that can change the sheets.
As if all that wasn’t enough, another big robot story just hit the headlines here. Chinese social and gaming giant Tencent printed its first report by a robot journalist, with the inflated byline Dreamwriter. "1,000-word story written by a robot – in 60 seconds!!!" panicked newspapers.
As a journalist, I wasn’t unnerved; I merely noted again the strange focus of robotics. Are reporters really high up the world’s "to-roboticise" list? Not to me, they’re not. Only when robots write a 1,000-word exclusive, revealing that newly-invented other robots can now do hair and the ironing, will I be automatically impressed. I might even dance, with Travolta-bot.
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