If you have ever taken a moment to pause and contemplate the fact that we’ve been in the 2000s for thirteen entire years, it’s likely that you’ve asked yourself where the hell the robots are. Shouldn’t we have them by now? And, more pressingly, if your future robot butler does manage to claw its way out of the uncanny valley and come knocking on your door, will you let it in? What about if it puts its creaky mechanical digits near your nether regions?
You probably won’t be too excited about the prospect, according to a recently-released HuffPost/YouGov poll that surveyed Americans’ attitudes about robots. According to its findings, 58 percent of Americans believe that robots will be cleaning our homes by 2030, but only 33 percent would want a robot servant. Not surprisingly, as the tasks in question became more personal and emotional, those polled were less likely to want a robot getting involved: only 22 percent would let a robot care for an aging friend or relative, and only 9 percent would have sex with a robot.
Our attitudes about robot sex bring up a lot of poignant and difficult questions: questions about how we conceive of gender and sexual orientation; questions about the fragility of the nature/technology binary and whether consciousness even exists; questions that probe into the darkest depths of human desire.
However, the most important question we must ask ourselves when faced with this imminent future technology is FUCK, MARRY, KILL: Rosey the robot maid from the Jetsons, C-3PO, and Wall-E.
Rosey The Robot Maid
The case for fuck: Rosey is a sassy robot in a french maid’s outfit who knows her way around a space shaft. Also, she once appeared in a Kanye West video.
The case for marry: If, in the future, we’re still going on about how the dual-parent family unit is essential in maintaining the stability of society because it yields high-functioning children, Rosey perfectly epitomizes those values. She is a domestic goddess who’s great with kids — although you’ll have to figure out the mechanisms of reproduction on your own. Maybe she can incubate a fetus in her stomach hatch?
The case for kill: Her mouth is shaped like a very small guillotine.
C-3pO