Who really benefits from smart tech at home? ‘Optimising’ family life can reinforce gender roles
- Written by Indra Mckie, Postdoctoral Researcher in Collaborative Human-AI Interaction Culture, University of Technology Sydney
Have you heard of the “male technologist” mindset? It may sound familiar, and you may even know such people personally.
Design researchers Turkka Keinonen and Nils Ehrenberg have defined the male technologist as someone who is obsessed with concerns about energy, efficiency and reducing labour.
This archetype became apparent in my PhD research when I interviewed 12 families about their use of early domestic robots and smart home devices Amazon Alexa and Google Home. One father over-engineered his smart home so much, his kids struggled to turn the lights on and off.
The male technologist in the home, as seen in my research, reflects wider trends of the Silicon Valley “tech bro” archetype, the techno-patriarchy, and the growing influence of a tech oligarchy in the Western world.
The male technologist often complicates and overcompensates with technology, raising the question: are these real problems tech can solve, or just quick fixes masking deeper issues?
It’s not about making men feel guilty
The term “male technologist” isn’t about making men feel guilty for using technology to innovate. Anyone can adopt this mindset. It can even apply to institutions that prioritise innovation and efficiency over emotional insight, lived experience or community-based ways of creating change.
It’s a reflection of how a masculine drive to solve surface-level problems can come before addressing patriarchal systems that have shaped the long-standing gendered division of domestic labour and “mental load”.
Mental load is the invisible, ongoing effort of planning, organising and managing daily life that often goes unnoticed but is essential to keeping things running.
Take one of my research participants, Hugo (name changed for privacy). A father of two, Hugo embodies this male technologist mindset by creating “business scenarios” to solve his family’s problems with smart home automation.
Indra Mckie/The Conversation
By his own admission, Hugo has over-engineered the home to the point where his children struggle to turn the lights on and off, having disabled the physical switches in favour of voice commands.
My research looked at how automation is changing care giving and acts of service in the home. With “compassionate automation”, someone could use smart technology to support loved ones in thoughtful ways, such as setting up smart home routines or reminders to make daily life easier.
But even when it comes from a place of care, tech-based help is not the same as human care. It may not always feel meaningful to the person receiving or providing it. As another participant in my research put it:
I think there are still human interactions [..] that you probably don’t want AI to mediate for you.
Indra Mckie/The Conversation
So what is the alternative to a male technologist mindset? Feminist and queer technology studies offer a different lens. Researchers in these fields argue our interactions with technology are never neutral; they are shaped by gender, power and cultural norms.
When we recognise this, we can imagine ways of designing and using tech in ways that emphasise care and relationships. Instead of setting up a smart timer in the kitchen, the technologist could ask his wife what she’s cooking and join her, using the voice assistant together to follow a recipe step by step.
The ultimate fantasy of the male technologist is more toys to solve domestic labour problems at home.
Gordenkoff/Shutterstock
Looking ahead to the future of smart homes
As Alexa+ rolls out later this year with a “smarter” generative AI brain, Google increases Gemini integration into its Home app, and tech companies race to build humanoid robots that can cook dinner and fold laundry, we’re seeing the ultimate fantasy of the male technologist come to life: more toys to presumably solve the problems of domestic labour at home.
But if men are now taking on more of the digital load, will the mental load finally shift too? Or will they continue to automate the easy, visible tasks while the emotional and cognitive labour still goes unseen and unshared?
Elon Musk has declared plans to launch several thousand Optimus robots – Tesla’s bid into the humanoid robot race.
He expects the explosion of a new market of personal humanoid robots, generating US$10 trillion in revenue long-term and potentially becoming the most valuable part of Tesla’s business.
But as homes get “smarter,” we have to ask: how is this reshaping family dynamics, relationships and domestic responsibility?
It’s important to consider if outsourcing chores to technology really is about easing the load, or just engineering our way around it without addressing the deeper mental and relational work of household labour.
Authors: Indra Mckie, Postdoctoral Researcher in Collaborative Human-AI Interaction Culture, University of Technology Sydney
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