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Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

Ex Machina is a work of fiction. It says a lot more about its authors than it says anything about humans, artificial intelligence, or sex. In this case, it says that the authors really think female bots are about sex and male bots do not necessarily have to be about sex.

http://www.wired.com/2015/04/ex-machina-turing-bechdel-test/

The only example of a sexualised male bot in fiction I can think of is Gigolo Joe in AI, and maybe Schwarzennegers' insistence on being nude in Terminator scenes. Chappie, Johnny 5, the Iron Giant, HAL 9000, the nameless robots in the I, Robot movie; none of them had to put up with being a sex object. There is overwhelmingly a huge skew towards sexualised fembots, to the point where being sex objects is their usual definining characteristic in fiction, whereas other male or ambiguous bots have a chance to explore a larger philosophical world in fiction.

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"In this case, it says that the authors really think female bots are about sex and male bots do not necessarily have to be about sex."

Wait, what?

--- Spoilers ---

If anything, the authors think of humans (more specifically men in the movie) as being all about sex.

Ava plays the seduction game because she(it) knows humans are susceptible to it.

I'm a machine, have google-like knowledge of human interaction, have a nice artificial body, and I know I can deceive everyone simply by looking defenseless. What's the most straightforward way to obtain what I want? To tell everyone to fuck off? No, not really....

The way she(it) acted was the cold and logical thing to do.

The authors wrote a story in which all of the bots are female and they're female for the express purpose of sex. There's no "it" here, and even the author tried to weasel out by saying that the robot doesn't actually have a sex. The robots are all female, they are all presented sexually, and this says more about what the authors think of robots and female sexuality than anything else.

There is a "it", _that's the whole point of the movie_!

The twist is when you realize that it wasn't a woman (which you can easily forget by how 'human' it acts), but a heartless robot doing everything in its power to obtain what it wanted.

"and even the author tried to weasel out by saying that the robot doesn't actually have a sex"

There's like 5 minutes where the protagonist discuss with the builder about why he gendered the robots. The authors were clearly aware they could have made a non-gendered robot.

(Now, the builder was enjoying them sexually, but that's a character in a story, not the authors.)

Of course, the ultimate need for a gendered robot is create the set for the story.

1. To get us, the audience, to be able to relate to it. Nobody is going to care if you format a super-toaster hard drives. They will if the toaster looks and act like a human being.

2. To enable the protagonist to be even more emotionally involved with the robot.

"and this says more about what the authors think of robots and female sexuality than anything else."

It says they know how to write a story, not much more.

They write a story that reinforces your presuppositions that the best way for women to get ahead is to use their sexuality. You already agreed with the authors before you saw their story. It is a common male fear. Males dominate women but feel powerless against their sexuality.

It is not about an AI at all. That's a distraction. Not once were you expected to think that Ava might fail the "Turing Test" they prepared for her. She is presented as a human with shiny skin, and the way for her to get ahead is to use sex.

Or as someone else mentioned in this thread, if she's not sexy, then what makes her female at all? The story reinforces your bias that the form and function of womanhood is primarily sexual.

I can't think of that many movies with sexualised female robots, either - although I suppose if you have a "female robot" it will probably sexy/attractive to begin with, otherwise what makes it female? (Does male/female even make sense for robots???).

I think you exaggerate the problem. Also, even if a female robot is sexualized, it doesn't mean that it can't explore "a larger philosophical world" at the same time. For example WALL-E was in love with the female robot, but the female robot was still cool sampling worlds for ecological recovery etc.

What about R. Jander Panell in The Robots of Dawn? Not all SF is film, in fact most of it is in books. And the I, Robot film is a travesty.

You need to see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Humans, then. It definitely has male robots playing the sex object role.

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