Yes, the robot is not described with a gender and it needn't have a gender -- or even the semblance of one -- but for whatever reason my wife and I both ignored

Yes, the robot is not described with a gender and it needn't have a gender -- or even the semblance of one -- but for whatever reason my wife and I both ignored that and assigned it as female, and were really really surprised many years later by the casting of a dude. We didn't even talk about it when reading the books. Just came up when we were both surprised by the casting. Kinda cool when your book-made vision shifts like that. It's one of the funnest parts of reading a book before the movie comes out... that sensation of /mental annexation/ that happens. Excited to see the show!