Beauty In The Eye Of The Android

from the well,-my-robot-said-she's-pretty... dept

Ever reticent dsg writes in with a link to a story about some researchers who have build a robotic head that (they say) can determine just how attractive a female is to a male. It doesn't work the other way around because the researchers believe that attraction for females isn't only based on looks alone. Seems like we've got a sexist robot. Anyway, the robot apparently can determine whether it's looking at a male or female, and if it's a female can give it an "attractiveness" score, based on her "feminitiy" charactersitics. It's sort of like an automated "hotornot". The company making the robot says it can be useful as a sort of automatic receptionist. I don't quite see why. How useful is it for a robot to be able to pick out the more attractive women in the crowd? Does this mean that now even the robots will be fawning over the "pretty" people? If I walk into an office, and even the robot receptionist is paying more attention to the attractive woman, how does that make me feel? Update: Here's another article about the robot that says the robot will tell women if they should be wearing more or less makeup and how that will impact their "attractiveness" score.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Joe Schmoe, 12 Feb 2003 @ 10:47am

    How useful is it for a robot to be able to pick ou


    BouncerBot!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 12 Feb 2003 @ 11:38am

    All they've managed to do...

    ...is provide reasonably compelling proof that no women took part in the design of the robot.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    dorpus, 12 Feb 2003 @ 11:48am

    Oh goodie

    Now we can make robots say the things that us humans can't tell women:

    "Really? You look much older."
    "That's a big red dress."
    "You looked much better before your haircut."
    "You remind me of this homeless woman."

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.