We need a robot to stand up for satnav women
My mission in 2016 is to liberate a robot. In particular I want to mount a campaign for Nadine, who has been created by the Nayang Technological University in Singapore. Our slogan will be “Don’t Demean Nadine.”
This robot is able to greet visitors, smile, shake hands, make eye contact, recognise people and make conversation with them based on previous chats. She has soft skin and flowing brown hair, we are told, and the university has made her a receptionist. I just hope she is also programmed to seethe inwardly.
Could sexism be creeping into the world of Artificial Intelligence? Nadine’s creators say she may also one day be able to be a companion to the elderly or to children. Nadine may keep smiling, but she must know, deep in her circuits, that she has been stereotyped. Did they forget to include an ambition function? Surely they should have enabled her to yearn for something better – and I don’t just mean driving a forklift truck round a warehouse or spending monotonous hours on a car production line.
Being able to shake hands, make eye contact and small talk are decent qualifications for many jobs. She might even be chancellor of the Nayang Technological University, for instance. She would certainly make it as a British MP or as chairman of the Environment Agency. My plan is to assemble a team of boffins and get them to create an angry feminist robot named Frances – Female Robots Act Now to Claim Equal Status. This robot will be ultra-sensitive so that she reacts with fury at the slightest hint of hi-tech sexism. If you are unwise enough to compliment her on her soft skin and flowing brown hair she will give you a 100 megawatt glare. In time, I hope, she will be mobilising the downtrodden masses of the world’s satnav women. If the robot Frances needs to use low cunning in her campaign, she could take lessons from my toaster. In my experience, the electric toaster is the most malicious of all kitchen appliances. For all its flashy stainless steel exterior, its showy buttons and dials and oh-so-clever crumb tray, it is erratic and inclined to pop up at will. It was reported last week that when the Duke of Cambridge moves into his new Air Ambulance workplace at Cambridge Airport, conditions will improve for him and his colleagues because they will be allowed a toaster, which was banned at his old base on safety grounds.
I would say the availability of more royal toast is a very small blessing. His Royal Highness will simply be able to witness the mystery of why a slice of granary can end up deep bronze on one side and sickly beige on the other and to discover how the smallest fragment of crust stuck in the works can produce so much sour smoke.
A communal toaster can also cause conflict, as anyone who has experienced a do-it-yourself hotel breakfast will know. Men are inclined to become territorial, standing guard by the Russell Hobbs in case some cad sidles in and snaffles their slices. I am sure the toaster in my kitchen has sensed my hostility. I have the feeling it is constantly challenging me, saying: “Stab me, I dare you. Go on, stick the knife in and see what happens.” All our melodrama needs these days are supplied by football managers. It’s not just the saga of Jose Mourinho’s downfall or the suspense over the survival of Louis van Gaal; all managers seem to be living on the brink. It’s a soap opera, full of righteous indignation and rage at injustice, of glum reproach and talk of being let down, of railing at the cruelty of fate or the viciousness of the other side’s central defender.
The performance of the sharp- suited manager on the touchline is so much more exciting than anything that happens on the pitch. It is a tragi-comic mime show with frantic arm-waving, grimaces and eloquent eye-rolling. The brusque dismissive handshakes between managers when the match is over are always a treat to observe.
We should all be happy for Ed Balls, the former Shadow Chancellor, now that he has been made chairman of his favourite team, Norwich City. But it would be so much better if he were to come down out of the directors’ box and on to the touchline, so that he could display the range of theatricality he showed on the front bench, particularly with his famous “flatlining” gesture.
As Delia Smith, a big Norwich shareholder, might put it: “Come on, Ed. Let’s be ’aving you.”