Julie Carpenter

“I’m very much an observer. Again, that’s ethnographer in me. I’m sure there are plenty of people in this area and ethics that would have a much more active response. But I view my work as one that’s heavily one of observation and reporting, again, patterns in how I see people interacting with these technologies. So I’m sort of this conduit of information, if you will. I’m a medium in itself if that makes sense.”

“As I watched it, there is fear of some emerging robot scenarios like sexualized robots or people who could fall in love with robots because it’s new. But as these things become more common and as we can observe how people are interacting, we can really… Instead of trying to predict damages, we’re learning how people are navigating it as it’s happening. I mean, that’s my view as a cultural scholar, really.”

“So as the technology changes, as the supply chain for them changes and the prices come down, that changes the market. That’s capitalism. That’s how it works with everything. As they become more accepted, as they become more common, all of these things impact how culturally we look at them. So will it go from we’re looking at them… I mean, think of a Terminator narrative or a Frankenstein narrative that we very much have about robots 25 years ago in the West that I think has changed a lot.”

“I mean, first of all, like I said, it’s for all of the media interest in the idea of sexualized robots, it’s really not a burgeoning industry yet. There really just have not been functioning robotics in that area. I guess I’m hesitating because it’s sort of hard to say right now; they’re talking dolls essentially, if you can afford one. So that’s a very different experience than something that can move and interact with you.”