Gendering Social Robots: Analyzing Gender and Intersectionality

Roboticists have numerous options for considering gender in robots.

1. Challenge current gender stereotypes

It is well established that humans interact with robots in ways that are comparable to human/human interaction. Building stereotypes into hardware hardens stereotypes in ways that may perpetuate current social inequalities (Eyssel & Hegel, 2012). Designing gender stereotypes into robots may: 1) amplify inequalities; 2) be offensive to humans; 3) result in market failures.

NASA’s superhero Valkyrie rescue robot challenges gender stereotypes. Although NASA officially claims Valkyrie is gender-neutral, its designer intentionally built a female super hero (1.87m, 129kg) to inspire his then 7-year-old daughter. The robot comes complete with breasts and a female name (Valkyrie refers to goddess-like figures in Norse mythology). To get the form right, the team brought in a French physicist-turned–fashion designer to help with the design (Dattaro, 2015). Although some characteristics appear masculine, such as the visual cues to Iron Man, a female in this space is interesting.

Gender cues can be subtle. SoftBank refers to its robot, Pepper, as “he,” although the cinched waist and skirt-like legs suggest a female. SoftBank advertises Pepper as the “first humanoid robot capable of recognising the principal human emotions and adapting his behavior to the mood of his interlocutor.” Emotion is often considered a female-specific domain; in this instance, the robot creators have countered cultural stereotypes by gendering Pepper male.

2. Design customizable robots

When designers decide to create human-like robots, one option is to allow users to customize the gender cues. The designers of x.ai, a scheduling bot, offer consumers a choice of names: Amy or Andrew. Although the names are gendered, the voice is the same and is said to “defy gender stereotypes.” As stated by the company, “the goal is to offer people a choice of genders for agent name but to make sure all of phrasings are gender neutral, mostly by sticking to facts such as time, place, and location without chit-chat” (Coren, 2017). The names Amy and Andrew are, of course, ethnically white and English. Consumers aren’t given the choice between “Imani” and “Jamal,” for instance (Sparrow, 2020). Further, gender-fluid people will want choices that go beyond gender binaries.

Savioke’s Relay service robots is interesting in this regard. Out-of-the box, it’s gender neutral, with a pink-blending-to-blue display. The robot, which does not speak, is said by its creators to be “charming, polite, and honest” and labeled a “Botlr”—playing off butler. The top opens to deliver to hotel guests towels, newspapers, and other service items. Savioke designers call it “he,” but this seems an unconscious default, and the robot might as easily be called “it.”

Relay is also customizable. With a black bowtie (male) but yellow and pink strips, the robot becomes nicely gender ambiguous.

With the same bowtie in turquoise, a pink jacket, and female name, it becomes “Jena.” The color scheme echoes themes of the Singapore Hotel Jen where the robot is employed.

Robots can also be customized around ethnicity and gender. Robokind designs robots for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). For many years Robokind offered only boy-like robots in a variety of skin tones, Carver (left) and Milo (right). Because autism affects four times as many boys as girls this robot was, perhaps rightly, boy-like. But millions of girls also suffer from ASD. What is interesting is that Robokind recently introduced girl-like robots, Jemi (right) and Veda (left), to offer girls useful educational tools.

3. Design genderless robots

Roboticists may opt to design genderless robots. Matlda is a genderless robot (despite the female name) used in Australian retirement homes and in some special education classrooms. This assistive robot has the appearance of a baby and a childish voice. Baby-faced robots—i.e., robots with large eyes and small chins—are perceived to be naïve and non-threatening (Powers & Kiesler, 2006). A recent study found that users with dementia engaged with and enjoyed the baby-like Matlda. Eighty-three percent of participants said they liked contact with Matlda and 72 percent said they felt relaxed in its presence (Khosla et al., 2013; Tam & Khosla, 2016).

Softbank’s NAO is another example of a child-like, genderless robot (Obaid et al., 2016). Although the designers refer to NAO as “he,” human annotators judged NAO genderless (Otterbacher & Talias, 2017). Robot appearance is one feature; voice is another. NAO’s default voice (Operating System version1.x) is a synthetic male child’s voice, known as Kenny (Sandygulova & O’Hare, 2015). The voice can also be manipulated to higher frequencies to suggest a female child.

Honda’s ASIMO (Advanced Step in Innovative MObility) has no obvious gender cues and speaks in childish voice. The problem is that people may assume robots have a gender identity, even when roboticists have designed them to be neutral. Asimo can easily be seen as male for its form, shape, and behavior.

4. Design gender-fluid robots prioritizing gender equality

To our knowledge, roboticists have not experimented with gender fluidity.

5. Step out of human social relations

To avoid human stereotypes, some robot designers have stepped out of human relations altogether. The Japanese creators of the RIBA-II, a large care-giving robot designed to lift sick or elderly people, chose to depict their robot as a large teddy bear rather than a human—thus removing the machine from human gender relations.

6. Design “robot-specific” identities that bypass social stereotypes

Fraunhofer and Phoenix Design’s Care-O-Bot 4 is of interest because it was designed to be neither human nor machine, but something called “technomorphic” and “iconic” (Kittmann et al., 2015). The team, which included product designers, robotics and software engineers, UX designers in a human-centered design process, avoided human features, including gender, in order to avoid raising unrealistic expectation of the robot’s capacities among users. The iconic design, they state, is open to interpretation: “A person who prefers a male robot, might recognize it in the design, a person who prefers a female robot might perceive it as well in the same design” (Parlitz et al., 2008).

The designers sought to create an “attractive,” “approachable” robot (Kittmann et al., 2015). It conveys the emotions required in care settings through gestures (primarily with its eyes embodied on a screen, a cocked head, etc.). The “head” is a touch screen equipped with cameras and sensors to “see” user’s gestures in addition to facial-recognition algorithms to estimate a user’s gender, age, and emotion.

Although the designers call the Care-O-Bot a “gentleman,” it functions largely outside gender norms. “Care-O-Bot” is a gender-neutral name. Users can personalize the name and choose male or female voices in forty different languages.