China has a new high tech breakthrough
Robot wives!
Is this the future of technology?
Or another dystopian nightmare.
This is China Uncensored.
I’m Chris Chappell.
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China is trying to lead the world in tech.
And apparently that includes building robot wives.
This report from Chinese media Sohu is called
“a robot wife has been created,
so you don’t need to marry a real wife in the future.”
It says Chinese scientists have created
realistic looking female robots
that can even do chores.
Of course, like some reports about
breakthroughs in Chinese technology,
this might be a little premature.
Those robot wives look like they can barely move,
so I’m not sure how good they’re going to be
at unloading the dishwasher.
Which is the true test of a successful marriage.
Also this report doesn’t exactly say which institution
or tech company is building robot wives.
But that last robot is called Jia Jia.
She—or it—was created by a team of scientists
at the University of Science and Technology in China.
They call her a robot goddess.
“Have you had dinner?
Eat whatever you like and treat yourself better.”
Eat whatever I want and feel good about myself?!
Wow, she is the perfect woman!
And guess what?
According to the Daily Mail,
they programmed her to call them ‘lord.’
“Hello”
“Hello my lord, how are you?”
Ok, to be fair, like some things in the Daily Mail,
that’s a little bit inaccurate.
She’s actually calling him her owner.
Much better.
But still, it’s incredible.
Because they’ve successfully made
a three dimensional female robot
as one dimensional as possible.
Now Jia Jia is capable of matching
lip movements to voice,
and can recreate micro-expressions
that are super uncanny valley.
Still better looking than this.
Yeah, I’m actually glad
I ain’t never had a friend like him.
Or a friend like this guy.
“A 31 year old software engineer in China
was tired of feeling pressure to get married
so he built his own robot bride.”
Now marrying a robot is not legal in China.
At least not yet.
But there’s a reason why there could eventually be
a push for robot wives in China.
Because of something called the One Child Policy.
For decades,
the Communist Party only let Chinese people
have one child, with some minor exceptions.
Since boys were preferred,
girls were sometimes aborted,
or killed after birth, or abandoned.
What that means today is this:
“In absolute numbers,
there are 33 million more men
than women in China today.”
Now you can imagine the kind of social problems
that can cause.
And in the grand scheme of things,
maybe robot brides are a slightly less-bad idea than say...
forcing Uighur women to marry Han Chinese men.
Or sex trafficking women from Southeast Asia.
And North Korea.
But robotic companions are going to create
a whole slew of other problems for every country,
not just the authoritarian ones.
For instance, celebrity copyright.
In Hong Kong, Ricky Ma,
despite having no background in robotics,
spend 50 thousand dollars
to build a Scarlett Johansson robot.
“Mark One, how do you feel about Ricky?
I really love you,
because you is my creator.”
That’s disgusting.
I hate bad grammar.
Oh yeah, and the fact that
this is literally objectifying women.
Not to mention—
how would the real Scarlett Johansson feel about this?
Because at the end of the day,
we know what these robot wives will be used for.
As Quartz so delicately puts it,
“Ricky built the Mark One to be anatomically correct.”
Yup.
And so the real question is,
as the New York Times asks,
can robots give consent?
I hate everything.
But seriously, this isn’t happening just in China.
This Frenchwoman said she was engaged
to a 3D printed robot she designed herself,
telling media, “I’m really and only attracted by the robots.”
I guess you could say the French woman...
surrendered to the pressures of dating?
And this Japanese man married a hologram.
Kondo's bride is a 16-year-old
with saucer eyes and aquaremine pigtails,
but Kondo considers himself an ordinary married man.
He told the Japan Times he considers himself
a sexual minority facing discrimination,
“It’s simply not right.
It’s as if you were trying to talk a gay man into dating a woman,
or a lesbian into a relationship with a man.”
According to the New York Times,
these, “pioneers of human-android romance
now have a name,
‘digisexuals.’”
I will never look at Digimon the same way again.
And it might not be too far off
that people can actually marry robots.
But the point is,
someday soon,
there could be a global market for robot wives.
And like any other emerging tech market,
China wants to be at the forefront.
Because of all the potential
for espionage and blackmail!
Unfortunately, that’s not a joke.
Already, people are worried that
even a Chinese made Metro line
could spy on people.
Imagine what hackers could do to
a made-in-China robot wife
that lives in your home.
As one China expert told the Epoch Times,
“If further developments of this product
include espionage functions,
such as eavesdropping and taking videos,
the user will have a live monitor in the residence.”
And I thought Alexa was creepy.
So if you’re worried about
Chinese telecom company Huawei
building your 5G network…
...it might not be too long before
we start seeing countries like the US
banning Chinese made robot wives
over national security concerns.
Yes.
The future is here.
And it is stupid.
On the plus side, at least there’s no way technology
could actually replace real women.
Wait, what’s that Shelley?
They have artificial wombs now?!
Well, what do you think about China’s robot wives?
And before you go,
now is the time when I answer a question
from a member of my loyal 50-Cent Army—
fans who support the show
through the crowd funding website Patreon.
Zhou Rui asks,
“Am I the only one that thinks it's odd
that the CCP believes
it is OK to debt trap countries
into "99 year leases"
of part of their country?
Why is this OK?
In Chinese history
this was part of their "Century of humiliation".
So is it OK to humiliate debtor countries
in the same way?
That’s actually a pretty deep question.
So the Century of Humiliation
is a period in Chinese history
when Chinese people felt
they were losing their place in the world
to encroaching foreign powers.
Many of those were Western powers,
but also Japan.
Tens of millions of Chinese people died from war,
or drugs, or famine.
Basically, China suffered a lot because of imperialism.
But today, the Century of Humiliation
is mainly brought up as a propaganda tool
by the Communist Party.
The goal is to get Chinese people
to redirect their anger at literally anything else,
as long as it’s not the Communist Party.
Remember, the Communist Party
wasn’t even in power
during the Century of Humiliation.
But the Party is perfectly happy
to learn from all the tactics
used against China back then,
and use them today—
in its dealings with other countries.
Although they pay lip service
to standing with other countries
who are “victims of Western imperialism,”
in the end,
the Chinese Communist Party
is going to do everything it can
to stay in power,
even if that means taking advantage of
these other nations along the way.
Thanks for your question Zhou Rui.
And if you’d like to hear
your question answered on the show,
sign up to support China Uncensored
on the crowd funding website Patreon.
It’s less than the cost of your daily cup of coffee.
Thanks for watching this episode of China Uncensored.
Once again I’m Chris Chappell,
see you next time!