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1.  

   Genders for Robots

   

   Brian Shock, May 5th, 2004 @ 3:26pm

   
   

   I think it's important to recognize that as human beings we retain the standard primate neural heritage. In most primates, instinctive behavior upon encountering another primate appears to be evaluating the other creature for gender, in order to treat it as a potential competitor or potential mate.
   That said, I would like to acknowledge immediately that healthy adult humans are not obligated to follow their instincts, and that much of what is good about human civilization involves sublimating these instincts. Until we train ourselves to deal with genderless humanoid robots, we will probably feel uncomfortable around them.
   Regarding human reaction to humanoid robots, I would be far more concerned about the "Uncanny Valley" hypothesis, for which gender is probably just a small subset.

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2.  

   Leather, boots, and whips

   

   dorpus, May 5th, 2004 @ 5:16pm

   
   

   When will we have the latest sex fetish from California, humans bowing to leather-clad gender neutral computers whipping us lowly humans into shape?
   

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3.  

   more genders

   

   xman, May 6th, 2004 @ 12:50am

   
   

   Why not introduce some new genders for robots why do they have to be the same as us? Sounds much more interesting.

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4.  

   Up on the soapbox...

   

   Rob Henderson, May 6th, 2004 @ 6:46am

   
   

   Americans as a society have a real problem with sex. Not just the act, the very existence of the word. Until about 15 years ago, any English teach would tell you that "gender" is a property of words. Some words, particularly in other languages, have masculine or feminine characteristics, referred to as their gender. Biological organisms have sex, either male or female.
   Nouns have gender, people have sex! (Or at least we did until the politically correct blandification of our public speech.)
   

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5.  

   Gender neutrality

   

   AMetamorphosis, May 6th, 2004 @ 8:39am

   
   

   
   I personally just don't see or feel the need to assign gender to inanimate objects or machines. I suppose some people would feel more comfortable interacting with what they perceive as a specific gender, but it isn't real.
   
   I've named my Miata " Emmie ", but I don't think of this machine as being of the female gender. Men have always named boats, cars, etc. with female names and refer to them as " she " so perhaps gender specific androids or robots will become the norm.
   
   Interesting topic Mike.

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6.  

   Re: Up on the soapbox...

   

   Mike (profile), May 6th, 2004 @ 8:50am

   
   

   Er... well considering that robots are not biological organisms, isn't gender appropriate? :)

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7.  

   How bad it could be. Re: Up on the soapbox...

   

   Anonymous Coward, May 6th, 2004 @ 8:57am

   
   

   Oh, great. Let me guess, the "girl robot" wears pink and says stuff like "Math is hard!". And the male robot blurts out "I'll be back!" everytime he leaves a room.
   
   Assigning gender to robots will almost assuredly reinforce negative gender stereotypes. How 'bout we treat people as people, not by their sex?

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8.  

   Robots..

   

   Tachi, Jun 23rd, 2009 @ 4:02am

   
   

   Robots have no gender, deal with it.

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