Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, and More Facsimile Females

Enhanced by artificial intelligence, today's simulated females are becoming ever more lifelike as the virtual vies with the real. They have already had a dramatic impact on personal relationships, on our views of women, and our ideas about what it means to be human.

From sex dolls to Siri, talking Barbies to robotic mothers, Artificial Women explores the ways in which today's simulated females, both real and fictional, reflect and expose our own ideas about sexuality, gender, and the impact of simulations on social relationships. Join Julie Wosk as she probes the realm of compliant robot sex workers, nurturing genial caregivers and companions, virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, and rebellious creations in film, television, literature, art, photography, and current developments in robotics. These simulated women often reflect old stereotypes, but also highlight a new breed of female robots, cyborgs, and dolls that possess agency, self-awareness, and autonomy.

Artificial Women pushes the boundaries of culture studies to consider how new digital technologies, artificial intelligences, and burgeoning simulations affect our own understandings of ourselves.