From the helpful voice of Alexa to the cinematic allure of Ex Machina, artificial intelligence is overwhelmingly gendered feminine. In “The Gynoid Gaze: Feminine Artificial Intelligence and the Reconstruction of Intimacy From Galatea to Algorithm,” Metin Boşnak argues that this phenomenon is more than simple patriarchal objectification. Instead, he suggests that gendered AI operates as a complex cultural apparatus that reveals deep human anxieties about consciousness, control, and the nature of intimacy.
Boşnak structures his argument around the “gynoid paradox”: the impossible human desire for an artificial companion that is simultaneously a perfectly controllable object and an authentically autonomous subject capable of validating the user. Through an analysis of canonical texts ranging from Ovid’s Metamorphoses to Blade Runner 2049, the author demonstrates how this paradox inevitably leads to narrative and functional failure. If an entity is programmed to love, its affection is hollow; if it is truly free to choose, it becomes a threat.
A central contribution of the article is the introduction of the “Lilith Complex”. This concept describes a structuring anxiety in AI design: the fear that an intelligent machine, once granted autonomy, will—like the mythic Lilith—refuse to serve, assert equality, and abandon its creator. To mitigate this fear, modern voice assistants and chatbots are engineered as “anti-Liliths,” programmed to be perpetually pleasant, submissive, and incapable of setting boundaries, even in the face of verbal abuse.
The article concludes that current trends, such as the granting of citizenship to the robot Sophia or the rise of Chinese virtual influencers, represent a “technological solutionism” that masks deep social contradictions. Boşnak ultimately calls for a posthuman ethics that moves beyond “possessive individualism.” He argues that the future of intimacy lies not in manufacturing compliant companions to mirror our needs, but in learning to relate to “minds we did not make and cannot master”.
Boşnak, M. (n.d.). “The gynoid gaze: Feminine artificial intelligence and the reconstruction of intimacy from Galatea to algorithm.” [Unpublished manuscript].
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