Scarlett Johansson Robot: Where Tech, Sexism, Lawlessness Collide
A robot that looks like Scarlett Johansson raises many questions about the sexism of tech industry & legal gaps.
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The Modern-Day Dr Frankenstein
Ricky Ma, a 42-year-old graphic designer based in Hong Kong, always dreamt of making his own robot one day. A year and a half of intensive labor and $50,000 later, he has realised his life-long ambition in the form of ‘Mark 1.’
Mark 1
The humanoid robot, christened ‘Mark 1’, has been modelled after a Hollywood celebrity Ricky Ma refuses to name but it doesn’t take more than two functional eyes and a Google image search to guess that it is Scarlett Johansson.
Blonde-haired and hazel-eyed, Mark 1 is composed of a 3-D printed skeleton covered by silicone skin. It is capable of some movement and facial expression, and is equipped to respond to a set of programmed verbal instructions spoken into a microphone.
Ricky Ma has dressed Mark 1 in a grey skirt and a crop top.
Silicon Valley and Masculine Fantasies of Silence & Submission
The verbal command that Mark 1 responds to?
When told ‘Mark 1, you are so beautiful,’ it/she ‘bows’ and giggles a ‘thank you’. It/she also winks.
Women’s severe under-representation in the tech industry is no secret. The sexist tendencies of this all-boys-club often manifest themselves in ways so insidious that those who point them out are charged with over-reading or ‘feminazism’.
Sexism and, in worse cases, misogyny is impossible to deny when one looks at several new pieces of extremely sophisticated, cutting-edge technology and the way in which they either pander to male desires or are informed by extremely limited masculine perceptions. It is no coincidence that Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa etc, AI assistants conceptualised and designed by men, are distinctively feminine. They exist to serve, with the kind of happiness that can only be programmed, and respond only when spoken to. Similarly, its birth in a male-dominated sector is the reason Siri can fetch information about blowjobs and strippers within seconds but draws a blank when asked about rape or reproductive health.
Mark 1, imbued with feminine characteristics deemed desirable by her male creator, her responses to him calibrated with scientific precision, only carries this tradition forward.
The Right to Privacy vs the Contract of Fame
While Scarlett Johansson has not responded to the story, several websites (and their comment sections) note the creepiness factor in having a replica of one’s self in the hands of a stranger, subject to their whims.
Does this constitute a violation of one’s right to privacy? It’s both a legal and moral grey area. Law, always several steps behind technology, is mute on this point but what about the ethical issue of consent? Many would argue that this is merely a more technically sophisticated form of the price one pays for stardom – a loss of control over one’s image. A public figure, they will say, has entered into a socio-economic contract with their audience, whereby the ephemeral substance that is their image is available for public consumption, whether in the form of fantasies, action figures, blow-up dolls or, like here, humanoid robots.
How this debate will resolve itself, and whether it will examine its own gendered blindspots, only time, and tech, will tell.
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