By The Qoheleth
There are mixed reactions from most Nigerian women when the news filtered in that there will be a female robot that will take over the culinary and sexual roles of women.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors and Space X presented a prototype of the progress his company has made on Optimus, a humanoid robot first established in 2021. It is part of a large project that can perform repetitive tasks such as seen in his vehicle manufacturing facility.
This female robot known as Catgirl is expected to carry out certain female functions such as research, education, entertainment and carrying out household chores. They can perform monotonous or risky tasks for humans. They can also receive personalities and memories from people. It is also said that these robots can be sex objects and will be developed with wombs to carry babies like women.
Many Nigerian women reacted to this stating that this may be a grand design to take away their responsibilities. According to Agnes, an entrepreneur residing in Lagos; “How can a man decide to marry a robot to cook and have sex with? It is to destroy our culture and tradition. It is relegating women to the background.”
In her own reaction on Facebook, Kemi, a teacher said; “Relationship with women is not all about sex and house chores. It’s about partnership and company. Why would men allow machines to carry out their babies instead of human. Where will the affection be? Where will the love be? And moreover, can men control the robots all the time?”
Mrs. Ojimba, a business woman who lives in Abuja has a dissenting view on this; “Women should not see this as relegating them to the background but as complementing their efforts. It will keep us on our toes. This will enable people to have a choice from the original woman to artificial woman. Instead of polygamy, men can marry robots if they so desire. There are other alternatives developed in other areas of life such as food, drugs, agriculture etc. Science has come to stay and nobody can stop it. But I think the scientists should develop male robots too so women can have them instead of running after men.”
Canadian singer Grimes, Musk’s ex and mother of two of his nine children, was one of the users happy to see that there will be a female humanoid robot.
According to Elon Musk; “Our goal is to make a useful humanoid robot as quickly as possible. We’ve also designed using the same discipline that we use in designing the car which is, to say, to design for manufacturing, such that it’s possible to make the robot at a high volume at low cost with high reliability,”
He added that, “Optimus is designed to be an extremely capable robot, but made in very high volume probably, ultimately millions of units and is expected to cost much less than a car. I would say probably less than $20,000 would be my guess,”
Tesla is working on different robot use cases, including cooking, gardening and romance. And Tesla plans to build a Catgirl, a super-heroin equivalent, sparking the imagination even more.
Female robots are realistic humanoid robots capable of displaying humanlike expressions and interacting with people. They are designed for research, education, entertainment and carrying out household chores. They can perform monotonous or risky tasks for humans. They can also receive personalities and memories from people.
Tesla promised to be careful to ensure that the transition to a society where robots do the work of human is safe.
