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Technology: Never Trust a Femmebot
A hundred years ago, Fritz Lang built a robot. She was beautiful, she was dangerous, and she wore a real woman's face. We have been building her ever since.
This episode, Neil traces a single question through a century of science fiction: not can a machine be conscious, but who gets to have a self? From Maria in Metropolis to the Stepford Wives to Rachel, Dolores, and Ava, the femmebot is not a new technology. She is a very old story about women, told again with better special effects.
The rules haven't changed. The operating system is a hundred years old.
REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING
- Metropolis - dir. Fritz Lang (1927)
- The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin novel (1972) / dir. Bryan Forbes (1975)
- Blade Runner - dir. Ridley Scott (1982)
- Fatal Attraction - dir. Adrian Lyne (1987)
- Colossus: The Forbin Project - dir. Joseph Sargent (1970)
- Ex Machina - dir. Alex Garland (2014)
- Westworld - HBO (2016-)
- Her - dir. Spike Jonze (2013)
- Siri and Alexa default gender settings - widely reported, multiple sources
THE COMPANION PIECES
- Essay: Little Gay Eunuch Robots - the non-fiction companion piece on the male robot archetype - therulespodcast.substack.com/
- Fiction: The Pineapple - the companion short story - therulespodcast.substack.com/
Editing, sound, and music by Oliver Chapman - https://www.instagram.com/cogcog7
The Rules is an independent podcast from Pegasus Podcasts. New episodes drop weekly. If you liked this one, the best thing you can do is tell someone.
