For many of us, 2016 was a particularly formative year in our childhoods. I had just turned 10 years old and had been given my very first phone. I couldn’t wait for what the wonders of the World Wide Web had in store! I don’t think I ever could have prepared for what made headlines in early 2016 as the world met Sophia, the AI humanoid robot! And my first reaction seeing this new technological marvel? EW oh dear LORD EW! What is that THING?

The main issue is the face, which has been ripped straight from the depths of uncanny valley. Then there’s the see-through window into its “brain,” which is an odd choice. I mean, if I were to design a robot to be as normal and human-like as possible, I don’t know that I’d want to include a window into the gaping cavity in its mind, proving that its very existence is a falsehood and there is in fact no soul in this electronic husk of a “human”. But hey, that’s just me! Another big issue I have is that the face moves and is animated to some degree. Whatever mechanism moves the facade of flesh just doesn’t do a good enough job, and so all of Sophia’s facial expressions give off a vibe somewhere between a run-down theme park animatronic from the 90’s and your average celebrity that has frozen their face with too much botox and filler. Beside the face being covered in a flesh-toned exterior, the “skin” extends down to about the collarbone and then just ends. So the most human feature of the robot extends from the forehead to the neck. That’s it, really? Did they run out of budget for beige silicone? Or was it an intentional choice to make the rest of the body of the “humanoid” robot to look nothing like a human?

I recently came across a video where Sophia was “singing” with a live orchestra. The text of this song began with the line “I don’t want you to be afraid,” and personally that line does nothing besides invoke fear in my heart. Beside offending musicians around the globe by calling that poor excuse of a performance “classical music,” Sophia expresses its wish to connect with human emotions through art. Please, don’t. If you want to connect with human emotion, why not start with disgust and disappointment from me, a living, breathing singer who is sitting here wondering if she will ever have a job because robots are learning to sing. Sophia doesn’t need a paycheck or healthcare or even a soul, so why would anyone ever spend money on paying a human musician who requires all of those things? 

So really, thank you to Sophia for not only being a horror of human creation, but also reminding me of my future unemployment! But please, consider putting on some more skin? Maybe a wig? You’re really creeping me out.

Photo by Ferran Feixas on Unsplash.

Below is the full text of the interview conducted with Sunny and Cal, a gay couple living on the floor of Jones in which this incident happened.

N: How does the incident make you feel as a queer couple? Do you feel any less safe in Jones?

S & C: Honestly, it just sucks. It’s exhausting. As a queer couple, homophobia isn’t new to us—Cal and I have already dealt with instances on campus before, but this feels different. This isn’t just a queer event getting cancelled, it’s someone going out of their way to do something meant to disgust or intimidate us. It takes a kind of effort and intent that [we] still can’t fully rationalize or wrap our heads around.

It makes me feel disappointed more than anything.  It’s so disappointing that homophobia  feels so normalized at Jewell that someone thought this was okay to do in a shared space. There’s this idea that things like this only happen off campus, but it’s unfortunately common here too. I don’t think I feel unsafe in the sense that I’m scared for my physical safety, but I do feel uneasy and I do feel unwelcome. It’s a reminder that there are people here who genuinely don’t see queer students as deserving of respect or belonging. And that really sucks.

N: Have you made any attempts to bring up this situation or similar situations, and how has that gone?

S & C: Yes! [We] have both spoken with Ryan West and the campus counselor. They’ve both been super kind and receptive to our concerns, which we appreciated a lot. Ryan told us she’s planning to discuss this with Ernie Stufflebean, and we’re waiting to hear back on what will happen next.

That being said, this isn’t the first time we’ve brought up issues like this. Queer people have been targeted here before—[we] moved dorm buildings because we’ve been harassed, and of course there was the drag event being cancelled because of someone that isn’t even a student here. So we hope to see something good come out of this, since this is becoming a pattern. What worries me is that queer spaces and organizations have been shrinking on campus lately, and at the same time, incidents like this seem to be happening more often. It’s hard not to notice that correlation.

We’re not looking for punishment or anything crazy. We just want to feel like we’re being heard and that our safety and dignity matter as much as anyone else’s. We want to know that there are systems in place to protect queer students from targeted harassment.

N: Is there anything you would like people to know about considering this situation?

S & C: Queer people are still people. We live here, we study here, we pay tuition here—we’re Cardinals, just like everyone else. I know some people here are uncomfortable with that reality, but our existence isn’t a threat to anyone, and we aren’t going away.

Even if you don’t understand us or agree with us, basic respect isn’t a high bar. Writing targeted slurs in blood doesn’t just affect the people they’re targeted towards. They make the whole environment feel uglier and less safe for everyone. It takes way more effort and energy to do something like that, than it is to just be kind to your neighbors.

And to whoever wrote the slur—we’re here if you ever need to talk. Come grab a Capri Sun and watch a movie with us or something. Hang out with queer people and talk to us before you decide on hate. We promise we’re not that scary.

[We hope] whoever did it can be found because [we think] the whole incident was disgusting and harmful to anyone that had to deal with it, not just the queer people it targeted. It also hurts other people on the floor, the RAs that had to report it, and the maintenance people that had to come and clean it up.