In Emily Perkins’ play The Made, Alice, a 40-year-old AI engineer and sole parent, negotiates the uncharted waters of robot emotions. She has Nanny Ann, a frumpy, middle-aged humanoid bot charged with childcare and housework.
And she has Arie, a new robot built on the chassis of a former sexbot. When Alice tries to infuse her robots with emotion, Nanny Ann gains the full gamut of emotional autonomy. As Perkins says, “She has a lot of fury.”
But Arie’s sexbot programming limits her emotional capacity to an unflagging happiness.
Premiered by the Auckland Theatre Company last year, The Made is funny, warm-hearted and chaotic, but it also casts a hard light on the stereotypes that shape the artificial intelligence industry.
“I wanted to consider why we have – not necessarily a lack of imagination, but a narrow band of imagination when it comes to what we are making AI look like and sound like and do,” says Perkins. “Falling into those stereotypes is a huge problem.”
Australian journalist Tracey Spicer, NSW Premier’s 2019 Woman of the Year for her work in the #MeToo movement and a recipient of an Order of Australia gong, was blindsided by that problem, too. In 2016, her then 11-year-old son announced he wanted a robot slave. It was 7.45am and her son had just seen South Park’s “toon hoon” Cartman bully and harass home robot Amazon Alexa.
