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Scrolling through YouTube, I learned two things. One, there’s an arm of 60 Minutes called 60 Minutes Australia, and two, watching this type of stuff at midnight will make you pull the covers over your head.

The lead story of this Aussie news magazine was the introduction of what is considered to be the world’s most advanced AI humanoid robot, built by Cornwall, UK-based Engineered Arts, and named Ameca. 

While her body is that of a sci-fi mannequin: shiny black, with a built-in camera lens in her chest to “see” her surroundings, and arms and hands that gesture in time with her speaking, it was her face that I found fascinating. Let’s be clear: marketing for sales relies on collected data that reveals what potential buyers find to be the most appealing. That data clearly showed that Ameca should have a beautifully symmetrical face that displays distinctly symmetrical features: Teutonic cheekbones, short, straight nose, full lips, and wide, expressive eyes full of emotion as they glanced around while she spoke. They even squinted in alarm as Ameca recoiled backward when the news host approached her to remark how beautiful her eyes were.

Speaking of speaking, Ameca is also programmed with an accent that her creators deemed as the most trusted, cultured and erudite: English. Private school English. Not Cockney, Northern or West Country. Upper class, BBC Masterpiece Theater English.

Not American, German, French or Italian. And definitely not Southern.

How come if we’re going to lose thousands of jobs to AI replacements, they can’t at least sound like the humans they’re replacing? Probably because people like me begin questions with ‘How come.’ But if it’s true that humanoid robots will also replace humans on the battlefield, then of course they can’t have a southern accent—where nearly every sentence we utter sounds like a question— because, as Robert Klein pointed out, we’d lose in a heartbeat.

“This is why the South lost the Civil War,” he remarked to the audience all those years ago when I saw him perform in Atlanta, “Because your general galloped onto the battlefield and yelled, ‘Charge?’”

Maybe it’s time someone at a respected southern University (sorry, Duke, your funds are frozen) came up with a humanoid we could relate to. We could call her Wanda and she could become your dental hygenist, your heart surgeon, pilot or mechanic. She might even simply be your cashier at Cracker Barrel. 

World domination isn’t so scary when you’re asked, “How’s your momma and them?” is it?