TECHNOCENTRIC REPRESENTATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL WOMEN: A FEMINIST TECHNOSCIENCE STUDY OF FEMALE ROBOTS IN CONTEMPORARY FICTION

Abstract

The assimilation of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics into practice in everyday life have created a lot of academic, cultural, and ethical controversy. The study of artificial women female coded robots and AI in modern fiction is one of the most eye-opening areas of research. The paper is grounded on the first aim of the overarching research project, which explores the technocentric portrayals of artificial women through exploring how fiction portrays female robots as an invention of technocentric thinking. This paper uses the Feminist Technoscience theory to examine how these two texts, Jeanette Winterson, Frankissstein (2019), and Julie Wosk, Alluring Androids, and Electronic Eves (2015), present a diagnosis of deep-seated gender biases that are ingrained in the design and imaginative work of technology, and how both works endorse and reinforce women as being hyper-feminized, subservient, and aesthetically idealized. As it is shown in this paper, these representations reflect the trends in AI in the real world, where female-coded assistants, service robots, and sex dolls are promoted as obedient, compliant, and responsive to emotions. Based on qualitative textual analysis and a broad range of feminist and posthumanist literature, the results indicate that unless AI development is critically addressed, it is likely to perpetuate past gender hierarchies in the name of being innovative. Placing these representations in the context of wider arguments about gender, technology, and power, the paper demands feminist, moral, and non-technocentric and non-patriarchal reimaginings of AI.