Android refers to a human-like robot and is the default category, like robot. Technically, android is a masculine description that we use as an umbrella term. Don’t you worry, however, there are categories for female-gendered robots: gynoid and fembot. Robots are literally genderless. As movies, tech bros, and anyone else attempting to create or depict sentient robots say, robots must fall into a gender category to make it feel more human.
Fembots seem like a sad replica of our society. In Ex Machina, these fembots are entirely tied to their body and sensuality, of course, otherwise what else would they have to work with as a female human? I thought about the concept of fembots and wondered, why do they need a body at all, in contrast to an AI like HAL or even ChatGPT? Ironically, to me, ChatGPT appears genderless. To others, however, this is not the case. I found some students who explored this topic. They found that ChatGPT was more likely to be seen as masculine than feminine. Why is this?
ChatGPT has no human name like Siri or Alexa and also lacks a gendered voice. People associate ChatGPT with competence and therefore masculine. I want to take it a step further in light of Ex Machina and discuss AI bodies. ChatGPT is bodiless and voiceless, which can aid the masculine gendering since male is the default, like robot. An AI like HAL has a masculine voice, but no body. Why then, do movies insist fembots who supposedly represent intelect and deception like HAL have a sexualized body? I understand that Alex Garland describes his film as showing why these stereotypes are problematic, but I think the film adds to the fembot trope.
Ava’s goal is to seduce Caleb to free herself. Obviously this is what Nathan would program her to do because how else would a man-made fembot escape a man-made cage? Could Ava just as well pass the Turing test without a body? Probably not because Caleb can only consider a female robot human if she represents what it means to be a female human: having a sexualized body that he can fall in love with? — Not to mention how infantilized Ava dresses and acts, but that’s another blog post.
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