LAS VEGAS (AP) — On a recent evening in Las Vegas during the CES technology show, robot strippers offered a window into technology's gender fault lines — not to mention our robot future.

From a distance, the mechanical humanoids on a strip-club stage looked something like real dancers in robot drag. But close up, they were clearly mannequins with surveillance-camera heads and abstractly sculpted feminine chests, buttocks and backs, shimmying and thrusting their boxy plastic hips.

On one level, this was a classic Vegas stunt, a cheap way for the club to cash in on the presence of the world's la...