The (Artificial) Mind Has No Sex?
Si-Yeon Lee Professor, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology(GIST) Drawing on Londa Schiebinger’s book title The Mind Has No Sex?, this study questions the gender status of AI in its existing and imagined forms. Most of the major ANI digital assistants and chatbots are predominantly, or by default, female, while female AGI characters are increasing in cinema. Both of these reproduce gender stereotypes. The female gendering of AI serves a two-fold misogynous role, as anxiety about the new, potentially “monstrous” technology projects itself onto the monstrous female other while seeking to contain its threat by aligning female AI with children and puppies (Pepper and Aibo). Mind uploading is not free from gendered embodiment either, and with the fundamental misogyny programmed into the robot-bodied AI in Ex Machina the trans-human dream of disembodiment is in itself antisomatic and misogynous and thereby inscribes the hated gender onto the artificial consciousness. The absolute majority of AI programmers and other human agents are male and largely insensitive to gender discrimination in both reality and their own technology. With this unchallenged, the artificial mind does and will have a sex of its own and cause real-life consequences. Key words： Artificial intelligence, machine learning, mind uploading, robot, gender, gender stereotypes, female dislike, Body disgust, depersonalization |
