Hey, Check Out This Creepy Airport Helper… Flat-Screen… Robot Lady Who Wants to Take Your Job

I’m sorry to bring up I, Robot, that movie that was like a screenwriter read I, Robot and then decided to do the opposite of every basic rule or principle that Asimov laid out in it, but there’s no better example of the dey turk err jerbz trope with robots. Books that are hard to find without Will Smith’s face on them aside, what would you expect the purpose of a female-looking robot who said this dialogue to be?

I’m so versatile. I could be used for just about anything. I can say what you want, dress the way you want, and be just about anything you want me to be!

Would it help if I told you that New York’s Port Authority Executive Director unveiled this robot earlier this week?

Meet… well, this unnamed lady-shaped flatscreen who will soon be attempting to replace human customer service representatives in New York area airports.

World, I wish you would stop giving me examples of female robots that support the argument that we feminize robots in order to make them seem like less of a threat, and also because we’re more comfortable with the idea of a dehumanized woman who will do anything we ask of it than we are with the idea of a dehumanized man who will do anything we ask.

(One happy note? One of the highest rated comments on this video is basically “Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved. Donna Noble has left the library. Donna Noble has been saved.”)

(via Jezebel.)

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Susana Polo

Susana Polo thought she'd get her Creative Writing degree from Oberlin, work a crap job, and fake it until she made it into comics. Instead she stumbled into a great job: founding and running this very website (she's Editor at Large now, very fancy). She's spoken at events like Geek Girl Con, New York Comic Con, and Comic Book City Con, wants to get a Batwoman tattoo and write a graphic novel, and one of her canine teeth is in backwards.

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