It does sound a lot like an architect. But maybe even sadder, it also sounds like an artist – one who happens to have a good understanding of the geometry they might draw – or a mathematician – one who is able to make good depictions of their ideas.
I mean, setting aside the mysteries of 3-point perspective or Escher, the first thing that came to my mind were illustrations like this (by Roger Hayward):
This is the hexagonal structure of ice for a book about chemical bonding; which is to say its purpose is purely to convey a geometric concept. And plainly that takes both understanding the concept and how you might draw such a thing. Each enables the other.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Sophia’s technology is impressive, but the design isn’t moving in the healthiest direction.
I also think it’s creepy that most of the humanoid robots making the news are either gender neutral or designed to mimic a cishet woman. No men. I don’t think I’ve even heard of someone making a sexy male robot outside of a fictional story/film.
Once again, it appears technologists don’t want women’s money.
In contrast, here’s an article which at least raises the moral and ethical issues around AI, robots, racism, and sexism. Oh look! The founder of the company is a woman. (Which I know doesn’t guarantee anything, and certainly men can behave ethically, but it’s interesting about how often these issues don’t come up when men are interviewed.)
What would a sexy male robot look like? Just… like a sexy man? How realistic would it minimally need to be in order to be successful? I am under the impression that some men who employ sexy robots for sexytimes might have a tendency (or at least an ability) to find a measure of sexual interest in the merest approximation of genitalia or other organs of prurient interest, to the neglect of the whole object of lust as a person rather than as… an object. Which, yeah, in the employment of a masturbation aid, isn’t necessarily a particularly unhealthy misuse of the product.
But, I mean, enough straight guys are sufficiently interested in such things to make increasingly-realistic sex dolls a viable marketplace. Would there be a similar level of interest in higher-end male sexbots to financially justify their development?
If we had fully functional androids like Data, then yes, women would be all over them. Honestly we’d probably prefer them simply because we could program them to take on the mental load. And they’d be actually logical. LOL
There’s actually a whole area of porn where women use robotic devices for pleasure. They look really industrial and kinda scary. I don’t know if this is one of those fetish things where men enjoy watching women get messed up, or whether there are women who enjoy the feeling of being jackhammered. But, I think rather than having a male robot, women just want sex toys.
A robot built on a butler archetype, who cleans while I’m away, calmly reminds me to do the chores he can’t do himself, and is DTF when I come home from a night out where I don’t find a guy? Doesn’t take too much imagination…
Edit: given the explosion in romance genres in the era of the Internet & Kindle I’d be surprised if this concept wasn’t already explored pretty thoroughly in those fictional works, at least.
Edit 2: bookmarking this for further, uh, research
I think I know the porn you speak of, and I doubt very much that its made for women. I do think it is about men watching women get messed up and very few women would enjoy that.
I remember reading article about the dying of the porn industry, how actors are being asked to do more and more for less and less money. And the journalist was on set with (very young) women and one of those machines. The directors and producers love those sets. Because “the machines don’t get tired”. No thought to the women on the receiving end. At one point, a woman who had to be talked into a scene, and was done, got a surprise second round when someone tripped and bumped the switch and turned the machine back on and she burst into tears.
I’m pretty much done with porn these days. The older I get the less I feel like its even consensual on basic level. The number of women who have left the porn industry with tales of rape, assault, coercion, blackmail and every flavour of abuse… the more I think its an industry that needs to end.
I think feminist porn could help, or certainly could not hurt. But I can’t watch any porn without getting triggered by stories about abuse in industrial porn. And abusive porn can advertise itself as feminist porn.
I have to wonder though, if every half-decent person avoids watching porn, is the industry chasing after sadists who still watch porn?
Oh gosh, I remember following that comic ages ago. But last I remember it went on hiatus and the author started a gender-swapped version or something? Maybe I’m confusing it with something else? But yes, now that it’s done it will be very helpful for my continuing research on these topics.
I think @enceladus and @MissyPants hit a lot of the major points. A robot which is helpful when not actually being used as a sex toy is sexy because more help = less stress and more time to do other things (er, like have sex). After that – up to the buyer, really. I think one that could attach a variety of vibrators would be a good design touch. Chester 5000, for all it’s fun, has the right basic idea.
There’d have to be a variety of physical looks and builds. I don’t think you could narrow it down to one body frame.
I think one of the other reasons that humanoid robots are often female is that they are designed by men for menial tasks, and those men have more fun ordering a woman around. It feels more “natural” to have a woman in a subservient helper role, so that is what they design. Hell, they don’t even have to be humanoid. Look at Siri and Alexa. Why did our electronic secretaries have to be women? It’s all part of the same thing.
I want the Star Trek experience! Where you say “Computer” with the right inflection and give a command that’s like a cross between natural language and SQL. And make it sound like Majel Barrett, who was a woman but didn’t sound all flutter echoed like Siri et al.
I read somewhere that computer voice assistants sound like women because both women and men are more comfortable with it, although for different reasons. Women supposedly find them less intimidating. I don’t know; a helpful and sincere sounding male voice also works for me as well as the Google whatever-her-name-is. I haven’t used Siri or Alexa.
Dr. Frankenstein: Why are you talking that way?
Igor: I thought you wanted to.
Dr. Frankenstein: No, I don’t want to.
Igor: [shrugs] Suit yourself. I’m easy.
Except (initially at least) GPS. Because the woman’s voice was perceived as giving the orders (in 300 meters, turn left) men didn’t like it. They balked at a woman telling them what to do (even though they knew the woman was just a computer).
