The Measure of a Woman

Abstract

Abstract While the production of real-life sex robots is currently only at prototype stage, sexualized female artificial intelligences have long been a trope in popular media. By critically analysing a selection of science fiction films and television programmes, we explore the narrative of fictional representations of eroticized female robots and the ways in which their reception feeds real-life expectation. While these media representations are, at times, surprisingly nuanced, they persist in giving their female AIs stable gender identities, even when the AIs are disembodied. Fictional and factual fembots each reflect the same regressive male fantasies: sexual outlets and the promise of emotional validation and companionship. Underpinning this are masculine anxieties regarding powerful women, as well as the fear of technology exceeding our capacities and escaping our control.