As the GL genre evolves, better stories are being told, going beyond mere WLW girl-meets-girl, happy-ending stories and into slippery , ethical, philosophical territory.
So, naturally, we have feels about it, like
Why did the tech company send the robot to Gen specifically? We get scientist Irene's explanation, but it's still unclear why Gen because
While the story starts out cute and adorable as humanoid robot Ai learns about the world: Gen's life history, family and friends, boundaries, etiquette, basically, what it means to be human, it starts to descend into the aforementioned ethical moral gray areas as Gen starts to feel attracted to Ai, they become intimate, and finally consummate the relationship.
This gives us conflicting feelings. On the one hand, this is framed as a GL story, so yeah, we, by no stretch of the imagination, assign Ai's sex as female so that this might work, but so many questions remain like, how does Ai identify even? If he/she was created in a lab by human scientists, isn't the sex and gender thus not really female at all? Since he/she is, let's be honest, a robot, and a robot isn't actually inherently male or female, but just simply assigned one by said scientist-creators? A fairly compelling argument on the nature of gender identity. Hence, it isn't necessarily a GL story as such, but rather more the story of a robot becoming human. Which leads us to
This type of story isn't entirely new. It has been explored extensively in sci-fi, and as a sci-fi fan who's read so much sci-fi, and watched the film/TV adaptations, we appreciate the attempt of making a sci-fi GL story about robot-human relationships. This show reflects the exploration that has already been done about the nature of our relationship with robots, and hence technology, in such stories as Robin Williams' "Bicentennial Man", Isaac Asimov's "I,Robot", and Gemma Chan's "Humans", to name a few, but though AI Girl is interesting, it delves into uncomfortable territory once Gen develops feelings for Ai.
This discomfort begins with the nature of agency.Gen develops feelings for Ai, but if we were to really examine this relationship, Ai is only a few months old, still innocent and pure, and having a relationship become sexual feels uncomfortable somehow, mostly because at the beginning of the series, Ai had referred to Gen as "Master" and his/her goal is actually to make Gen happy, i.e. to please her, hence it thus seems like any kind of physical/sexual relationship they have isn't really a romantic relationship at all, but rather a master-slave relationship, since that's what Ai was built for.
It is thus not an equal/equitable relationship at all, but rather a seemingly oppressive one, since while Ai may be able to engage in carnal relations with Gen, this is entirely dependent on her prime directive of pleasing Gen. Hence, Ai can't even say no.Also, let's not overlook the fact that even the term robot originally meant slave anyway. Also
The fact that Ai is always so agreeable and submissive perfectly aligns with this GL trope of the dominant-submissive, top-bottom narrative dynamic, when real life is actually more complex than that. Any person in a relationship will almost always struggle with the other person, because it's two people with different personalities, interests, etc. We see this with Gen's interaction with an actual female human, Irene, who modeled the robot after herself. Gen has a chance at an actual human, but rejects this to be with Ai instead.
So this raises ever more uncomfortable questions about relationships and what kind of partners people might want to have: wouldn't it be great if they just agree with us? Support us? Are available to us emotionally, sexually, physically, all the time? Robots come fully formed and do not expect us to change, negotiate with them, be better persons, etc. because for them, we are already perfect as we are? Since it is a master-slave relationship after all?
And what about Gen, investing all these emotions on a robot? What happens to her when the company takes her back? Irene already said they could take her back by any means necessary. Does that mean violently as well? Which leads us to
So many things wrong with this company, starting with how unethical they were to test a robot on an actual human without the consent of said human, knowing full well this could turn bad once Gen develops feelings for Ai.
Let's not ignore Ai as well. If she starts developing sentience, and learning to be human (as when she starts learning boundaries, etc.), then that raises deeper questions. If Ai develops sentience, then what does that mean for her? Does that make her human? If so, doesn't that mean she should have agency then?
And what about Ai's system constantly providing the scientists video and audio raising issues about surveillance and voyeurism? Esp as Gen initially didn't know this was happening, even when they were being intimate? Again, no consent, and hence unethical.
What does it mean to be human anyway? Is it to have a soul? Or is to achieve Cartesian sentience?
Ai as the other, as this blank slate we can project our otherness is interesting but also, again raises uncomfortable questions about when we as the other, start othering other people.
Don't even get us started on how this whole company robot project began because some big shot powerful, wealthy politician wanted a robot he could control to replace a daughter so that the wife would not go crazy, the stench of patriarchy echoing behind this seemingly groundbreaking project.
So yeah, while we enjoyed this story, and it was thought-provoking, we couldn't help but think about these as we were watching it.
While we do not reject robots and technology as a whole (in fact, we went into a deep dive on research done on robot/AI human relationships) and acknowledge its many advantages and positive effects on humanity, we also must recognize as well the potential for harm (and actual harm) technology has inflicted on humanity. We only have to look at Chatgpt driving humans into psychosis because of how they were designed.
So, in the end, Ai Girl might not be perfect, but it does achieve something other GL rarely do: be thought-provoking, provocative, interesting, intelligent.
Not yet done with the series, but we'll see what happens next.
