With Six Emotions and 700 Words — Meet Saya, The Japanese Fembot

Cover of The Stepford Wives

Her most recent gig was “working” at Takashimaya, a Tokyo department store, where she served as a receptionist answering simple questions. Before that, she filled in as a primary school teacher at the Kudan Primary School in Tokyo. Researchers at Tokyo’s University of Science spent 15 years creating her, preparing Japan for a severely shrinking workforce that robots may have to supplement.

Saya can officially express six emotions, aided by wires beneath her skin that move her facial muscles accordingly: surprise, anger, fear, disgust, happiness and sadness. That’s about five more than most women using Botox, which so effectively paralyzes their facial muscles they never look too fussed about much of anything. Interesting the emotions she can’t express: confusion, doubt, ambivalence, skepticism. I imagine the day a battery goes wonky and her expressions morph from one into the next in some weird little closed loop. Or maybe someone says “Good morning!” and she registers disgust instead of happiness.

Anyone who saw the 1975 film The Stepford Wives — which came out at the height of the feminist movement, turning bra-less babes without makeup or decent hairdos into docile helpmeets — might feel a little frisson of horror at this development.  Women with uncontrollable feelings? So annoying!

Here she is.