HDFC Bank has introduced an Intelligent Robotic Assistant (IRA) at one of its branches in Mumbai. It’s been developed by Asimov Robotics, a Kochi-based startup, and the humanoid, positioned at the welcome desk, is supposed to greet and guide customers to the relevant counters in the bank.
Of course, the first thing we (and everyone else, we’re sure) noticed about the little humanoid was obviously its big bindi. It also looks like it’s wearing one of those long skirts and even has large eyes with mascara. Apart from finding it a bit strange to talk to it (it’s soon going to have voice recognition), we were wondering why it had to look like this. Its job is to do the greeting, and it could have been shaped as just anything — you know, how Wall E looked like a box? But it seems like even in these IRA and humanoid machines — that we could very well have just left without ascribing it a gender — there’s this compulsive need to make them wear bindis and mascara. Particularly since they’re supposed to be doing the greeting and helping jobs.
Thanks to Veena Venugopal for pointing it out to us.