Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

loradicarlo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 92 posts

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#41

Post by lawnchair_larry »

foldr wrote: post #35
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The previous sex toy that won an award was for women, from OhMiBod, founded by a woman. This is just a weak attempt to create controversy. It has nothing to do with them being women and that’s a silly first assumption. If you go to the OhMiBod website, they have a big ad up boasting of their CES 2019 presence, including their all-female lineup of vibrators. “The company’s experience contrasts starkly with the way CTA…

>The previous sex toy that won an award was for women, from OhMiBod, founded by a woman So...this completely undermines CES's revised story (that they can't give the Lora DiCarlo toy an award because there's no category for sex toys). The fact that CES has given two separate reasons for this decision, neither of which makes sense, isn't exactly making them look good.

Who cares. They should write an article about their confusing rules then (it would not be the first, this comes up every year).

But don’t cry sexism when there are female “sexual health” devices by female founders on display and winning awards.

Maybe they are trying to change their image, and this device couldn’t satisfy another category. Maybe they decided it wasn’t novel enough in the areas that matter, and it’s just a better vibrator.

VR Porn is in the VR category, not an adult category, for example. And VR porn for women (whatever that means) is allowed too. Even if the studio has a mostly woman engineering team!

There is already a conference for adult toys at the same time. CES doesn’t want to be that.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#42

Post by foldr »

jeroenhd wrote: post #38
undecisive wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds plausible. And I think if the first communication on the matter had been about the difference between robots and devices containing robotics technology, that would be correct. However the first communication (according to the original post) was about indecent / not in keeping with CES image. The "Oh well, it's not even a real robot" seems like an afterthought. So not really a "baseless claim". A stretch,…

To me the first response sounds very much like a canned PR response written by someone with little knowledge of what goes on inside CES. CES has allowed vibrators before so I don't see why they wouldn't stroke with policy now. As another comment in this thread states, OhMiBod has been showcased for years. I think at first someone at the top (or middle management) just said "that's not relevant, someone get that proje…

The chain of events you're describing illustrates how sexism actually works. It's not usually the result of a cabal of Evil Sexists deliberately doing their best to be sexists.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#43

Post by foldr »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #41
foldr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The previous sex toy that won an award was for women, from OhMiBod, founded by a woman So...this completely undermines CES's revised story (that they can't give the Lora DiCarlo toy an award because there's no category for sex toys). The fact that CES has given two separate reasons for this decision, neither of which makes sense, isn't exactly making them look good.

Who cares. They should write an article about their confusing rules then (it would not be the first, this comes up every year). But don’t cry sexism when there are female “sexual health” devices by female founders on display and winning awards. Maybe they are trying to change their image, and this device couldn’t satisfy another category. Maybe they decided it wasn’t novel enough in the areas that matter, and it’s ju…

That's like saying "don't complain about sexism in tech when there are female programmers". The fact that CES doesn't operate a 100% efficient program of sexist discrimination doesn't show that Lora DiCarlo didn't experience sexist discrimination.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#44

Post by rndgermandude »

bjourne wrote: post #10

For those who didn't read the article... The author is claiming that their is a partial lewdness order among products so that normal products <= robotic vibrator <= vr porn. Therefore, if the lewdness threshold doesn't ban vr porn it cannot ban robotic vibrators either. But since robotic vibrators are banned and not vr porn, discrimination must be at play.

I didn't read it as "vibrators are banned in general", but as "vibrators are banned from receiving awards (in the robotics category)".

As far as I can tell, the VR porn and the "sex robot for men" were not given awards either. They were just present on the CES.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#45

Post by rndgermandude »

undecisive wrote: post #6
fermienrico wrote: post #4

I’m trying to link the accusation of gender bias and LGBT rights with the act of conceding the Innovation Award. Looks like their reason is that “it does not fall under Robotics category” which the article debates well. But, what actions and indications lead to gender bias? If I am a woman and I get rejected from a job, I don’t immediately start accusing the interviewer of gender bias. It hurts the cause for real iss…

I guess the argument is that if the only difference between two "robots" is the gender of their intended audience, and one gets banned, then that's prejudice. Along the same lines as, if the only difference between two people doing the same job is their gender, and one gets paid more, then that's prejudice. They're not wrong. Of course, CES could argue that it's bad timing - that the new product came out just as CES…

Their vibrator got banned from competing for an award. It did NOT get banned from being at CES.

The male-focused sex products did not even compete for the awards as far as I can tell, or at least did not get any of the awards.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#46

Post by ubercow13 »

foldr wrote: post #42
jeroenhd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me the first response sounds very much like a canned PR response written by someone with little knowledge of what goes on inside CES. CES has allowed vibrators before so I don't see why they wouldn't stroke with policy now. As another comment in this thread states, OhMiBod has been showcased for years. I think at first someone at the top (or middle management) just said "that's not relevant, someone get that proje…

The chain of events you're describing illustrates how sexism actually works. It's not usually the result of a cabal of Evil Sexists deliberately doing their best to be sexists.

What part of that chain of events would lead to a sexist outcome? Where's the gender bias introduced?

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#47

Post by icebraining »

t4sk1n wrote: post #33
icebraining wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their integrity is irrelevant when you have the facts and can judge the behavior of CES for yourself.

But while examining this article, it should make people question everything that's implied

I don't see anything implied; it's all quite explicitly stated.

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#48

Post by undecisive »

jeroenhd wrote: post #38
undecisive wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds plausible. And I think if the first communication on the matter had been about the difference between robots and devices containing robotics technology, that would be correct. However the first communication (according to the original post) was about indecent / not in keeping with CES image. The "Oh well, it's not even a real robot" seems like an afterthought. So not really a "baseless claim". A stretch,…

To me the first response sounds very much like a canned PR response written by someone with little knowledge of what goes on inside CES. CES has allowed vibrators before so I don't see why they wouldn't stroke with policy now. As another comment in this thread states, OhMiBod has been showcased for years. I think at first someone at the top (or middle management) just said "that's not relevant, someone get that proje…

Again, totally plausible. I agree that the post has jumped to a conclusion, that this conclusion is sensationalist and some of their arguments require further justification.

And I should point out that I very often dismiss such articles as crying wolf, especially where there is something to be gained by doing so (in this case, lots of publicity).

But actually, the issue deserves some publicity. Even if it was just an intern jumping to a somewhat sexist conclusion (though it sounds slightly absurd that they would send an intern to rescind a winning entry, but then I have absolutely no understanding of the inner workings of CES)

So yeah - an intentional choice has clearly been made to view this through a lens; that lens happens to be a little sensationalist. But still, it's far from a baseless accusation.

(also prejudice does not necessitate malice. In my view, in the majority of cases, prejudice IS stupidity. But you can hurt a lot of people with stupidity)

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#49

Post by marcus_holmes »

jeroenhd wrote: post #27

As impressive as this toy sounds, I don't see how it is related to robotics. The comparison between a vibrator and a full sex robot does not make sense to me; a sex bot needs to articulate joints and show human expressions, a vibrator needs to make some ver slight movements in very specific places. I don't blame the author for being upset about this because I can't see a reason to retract the submission to the contes…

> "Spending half the page blabbering about empowerment of women and LBQTI+ only detracts from their argument. Their baseless claim of mysoginy and homophobia distracts..."

Rather than dismissing all that information as "blabbering", maybe consider the possibility that it forms the base of their not-so-"baseless" claim of bias? Just a suggestion...

And when I read it, it made perfect sense that this is a robot. As they presented it, this is a machine that uses a variety of movements and sensory feedback to achieve a very precise effect on a subject. There's lots of "robots" that do less. And, y'know... it's a tricky effect to achieve (in a lot of cases - there's a huge variety of responses to stimulus).

Re: We won a CES robotics innovation award, then they took it back

#50

Post by foldr »

ubercow13 wrote: post #46
foldr wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The chain of events you're describing illustrates how sexism actually works. It's not usually the result of a cabal of Evil Sexists deliberately doing their best to be sexists.

What part of that chain of events would lead to a sexist outcome? Where's the gender bias introduced?

I think CES's half-formed "this is immoral" and "this is not a robot" excuses would have been less likely if the product was targeted at men.
Post reply on HN