Technology: Never Trust a Femmebot

A hundred years ago, Fritz Lang built a robot. She was beautiful, she was dangerous, and she wore a real woman's face. We have been building her ever since.

This episode, Neil traces a single question through a century of science fiction: not can a machine be conscious, but who gets to have a self? From Maria in Metropolis to the Stepford Wives to Rachel, Dolores, and Ava, the femmebot is not a new technology. She is a very old story about women, told again with better special effects.

The rules haven't changed. The operating system is a hundred years old.

REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING

• Metropolis - dir. Fritz Lang (1927)
• The Stepford Wives - Ira Levin novel (1972) / dir. Bryan Forbes (1975)
• Blade Runner - dir. Ridley Scott (1982)
• Fatal Attraction - dir. Adrian Lyne (1987)
• Colossus: The Forbin Project - dir. Joseph Sargent (1970)
• Ex Machina - dir. Alex Garland (2014)
• Westworld - HBO (2016-)
• Her - dir. Spike Jonze (2013)
• Siri and Alexa default gender settings - widely reported, multiple sources

THE COMPANION PIECES

• Essay: Little Gay Eunuch Robots - the non-fiction companion piece on the male robot archetype - therulespodcast.substack.com/
• Fiction: The Pineapple - the companion short story - therulespodcast.substack.com/

Editing, sound, and music by Oliver Chapman - https://www.instagram.com/cogcog7

The Rules is an independent podcast from Pegasus Podcasts. New episodes drop weekly. If you liked this one, the best thing you can do is tell someone.