Opinion: This is how artificial intelligence is undoing women's rights

Before Siri and Cortana, pop culture offered up several versions of feminised artificial intelligence – but none of the artists perhaps envisioned how the reality could take us backwards rather than propel us into a new, more equal world. Charli XCX's latest album, Pop 2, has been dubbed as the "sequel" to pop music. The 10-track mixtape is riddled with a slew of pop sirens, underground up-and-comers and club-ready anthems: "Go fuck your prototype I'm an upgrade of your stereotype," Charli sings in Femmebot. In 2010, Robyn's Fembot interrogated the intersection of womanhood and androidism, while Christina Aguilera's sixth album that same year, Bionic, toyed between electro-pop beats (the machine) and stripped-back ballads (the woman). The phenomenon has long been computed into film and pop culture (Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), Stepford Wives (1975), Metropolis (1927)), but only recently have physical manifestations entered our reality. Just as we acknowledge the wiring of femmebots and female pop stars, we should also consider the broader parallel between women and technology, and the increased feminisation of artificial intelligence.