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What Sex is Your Robot?
Ant writes "Technology Review has an article about how the more robots interact with humans, the more important their apparent gender becomes."
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"...this is gonna be the best prom ever!"
...that i see word "sex" on slashdot. For a second i thought that we geeks are finally getting lives :) But only for a second - then i read the entire subject.
by the inability of the quips to come up with any good material in the first minutes after it was posted.
I don't want to offend anyone, but I'd really love a gay robot. That way I don't have to strain myself over choosing what to wear in the morning - the robot would have that kind of knowledge embedded in him - some say it's genetics, some say it's the way he was raised, but either way he makes a snappy dresser.
And the day came when the risk to remain closed in a bud, became more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Considering that a certain portion of the population is willing to have "sex" with a blow-up doll, it's just a matter of time before robots are marketed for the same purpose.
I'm not joking when I say that the "roboporn" industry is likely to be a significant driving force when it comes to creating cheap, lifelike robots.
I don't know if you could even make a female robot. Since the robot's consciousness would have to be controlled by a computer, I assume it would be based on logic and reason. Both of those qualities are sorely lacking in the females that I've known.
Although, I suppose with good enough pseudo-randomness it might work.
Best slashdot comment
"Whoah, whoah, wait, Bender. As long as we're here, why don't we take in some exotic dancing?"
"Hey, great idea!"
*gasp* "But those girls don't wear cases! You can see their bare circuits!"
[Snicker] [Chortle] [Coffee-out-the-nose Snort]
You would have to post this right after the "This is going to be the best prom, ever!" comment.You were 80% angel, 10% demon. The rest was hard to explain. - Over The Rhine
"Math in a song is good."-Linford
Great idea! Let us intruduce sexism to robots!
I ask you, is this really a world we want our robots to live in?!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
A class learning French and trying to get to grips with gender wondered if the word "computer" should be masculine or feminine. Split into two groups, men and women, they were asked to say which they considered a computer to be, and to give four reasons for their decision
The women decided that computers are masculine because:
-In order to gain their attention, you have to turn them on.
-They are full of data, but are still clueless.
-They are supposed to help you solve your problems, but most of the time they are the problem.
-As soon as you commit to one, you realise that if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better one.
The men decided that computers are feminine because:
-No one but their creator understands their internal logic.
-The language they use to communicate with each other is totally incomprehensible.
-Even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.
-As soon as you commit to them, you spend half your disposable income on buying accesories for them.
$cat
An important distinction to be made is that sex is not gender. Sex should be used only when referring to the biological nature of the object in question, whereas gender refers to a set of socially-constructed rules governing the objects behavior in society. To quote Everything2: "In anthropology gender is the accepted way to refer to a set of behaviors/beliefes often related to physical sex traits. You can have a gender that is different from your biological sex, if your culture premits."
Unix, of course!
(sayonara karma)
eleven plus two / twelve plus one