How feminist do robots need to be?

Giulia Perugia presented her research at the Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) conference in Japan, which was moved online due to corona. In a study with the University of Siena, researched the perception of gender and age in humanoid robots. The guiding question here was the extent to which the designers of robots, themselves a largely homogeneous group, incorporate their perceptions and biases into the design. The researchers wanted to know if there was a correlation between the degree to which a robot resembles a human and its assigned gender and age. They also wanted to identify the external characteristics by which this assignment is influenced. The study was based on the ABOT (The Anthropomorphic Robot Database) database, which currently contains more than 250 humanoid robots.

Only a few robots appear feminine

According to Perugia, age and childhood are underrepresented in current designs of humanoid robots. The assumption is that this could be due to the fact that the robots must give the impression of competence and precision.

Female and androgynous robots are also underrepresented. Especially striking is the complete absence of androgynous robots. The researchers doubt: is this due to developers designing robots only as male, female or neutral? Or is the idea of dual gender so deeply rooted in humans that they cannot simultaneously ascribe male and female characteristics to a robot?

But how can robots be designed to challenge gender stereotypes rather than reinforce them? Because their research raised more questions than answers, the researchers made their data freely available under the title ROBO-GAP (humanoid ROBOts - Gender and Age Perception) in hopes of launching further research.

Source: heise.de

Link to ROBO-GAP dataset:

More information on the research of Giulia Perugia