Robots vs. women in the workplace

Automation anxiety tends to follow a more or less familiar script: the robots take our jobs or destroy the world (either due to downright malice, or in pursuit of some far more benign goal like optimizing efficiency).

A much more interesting question is how introducing robots to the workforce impacts on — or indeed accelerates — existing inequalities.

But what is the full implications of granting a robot citizenship in a country where it is currently illegal for women to travel abroad or undergo surgery without the permission of a male relative?

Interacting with people — in this case a group of male investors — and dressing how you want — i.e. not wearing the full length abaya — are rights currently not available to Saudi women, who only make up about 13% of the workforce.

The debate over the effects of AI largely concentrates on its impact on the WIERD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) world. But what will introducing robots mean for those who are already at a disadvantage in the non-WIERD societies that they enter into?

The question is now whether Citizen Sophia will galvanize the debate around the rights of Saudi women in the workplace — or become a means of keeping women out of the workplace for good.

Other second class citizens take note.

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