ABSTRACT
Gender is one of the most pervasive social categories that shape an individual’s life. This chapter provides some vantage points for understanding gender, shows how artificial intelligence (AI) understands gender, what sexist AI can lead to, how voice and embodied AI play with gender, and what sexbots imply for diversity. Sexism across the globe takes many forms, including threatening behavior, exclusion, rigid roles, sexualization, shaming, catcalling, sexist language, insults, control, harassment, stalking, physical and psychological violence, rape, murder, and deprecation of women. The chapter looks at sexist apps, with Siri, Alexa, and other app sisters responding poorly to cries for help after serious sexual assaults and flirting back when human users sexualized the apps. Some scholars suggest that sex robots could be important tools for disabled people or people who would otherwise struggle with finding human sexual partners.
