I am a retired, not retiring but very busy old woman who spent all her working life in broadcasting and then digital technology. Hence.....my views from there.
If we start putting gender attributes into robots we are anthropomorphising them. We already accept all the support we get from electronic devices without which much that I now do would not be possible. So I do not need devices which I use to be humanoid lookalikes any more than I want many beloved cats to be human. Surely imputing human form and limitations upon a piece of equipment could restrict its capability to do the required job.
We need as engineers to counter the public expectation of anthropomorphised devices, call them robots if you like. I suspect that we as engineers started the public expectation. Design them to do the job, remembering that they only need to look or act like a human if the job requires it.....and it sometimes might. But when it does the gender concern is worrying, I still find people expressing contrary views about female engineers. Some of this is, of course, because the title 'engineer' is so misused.
I am a retired, not retiring but very busy old woman who spent all her working life in broadcasting and then digital technology. Hence.....my views from there.
If we start putting gender attributes into robots we are anthropomorphising them. We already accept all the support we get from electronic devices without which much that I now do would not be possible. So I do not need devices which I use to be humanoid lookalikes any more than I want many beloved cats to be human. Surely imputing human form and limitations upon a piece of equipment could restrict its capability to do the required job.
We need as engineers to counter the public expectation of anthropomorphised devices, call them robots if you like. I suspect that we as engineers started the public expectation. Design them to do the job, remembering that they only need to look or act like a human if the job requires it.....and it sometimes might. But when it does the gender concern is worrying, I still find people expressing contrary views about female engineers. Some of this is, of course, because the title 'engineer' is so misused.
