Beauty queens around the world have taken to social media to complain about the judges’ ruling in last night’s Miss World beauty pageant. Erica (28), a Japanese humanoid robot, who is also a well-known television personality, was chosen as the first runner-up in the prestigious competition. Her fellow, human, competitors feel that Erica’s artificial beauty and artificial intelligence gave her an unfair advantage over flesh and blood women who have to diet and endure gruelling physical training to stay in shape.

Says Tiffany Holiday, the current Miss America, who placed third in the competition, just behind the fembot; “It’s just so unfair! Since when did beauty pageants become about perfection? We should embrace and celebrate the flaws of real human women. Real beauty, in my humble opinion, comes from imperfections. And she’s much smarter than us too!”

Ms Holiday, along with several other Miss World finalists, now plans to take the Miss World pageant to court to challenge the legality of the ruling.

Japan shot back at Erica’s detractors and defended their contestant in a media release.

“Erica is a citizen of Japan. She has as much right to participate in the pageant as any other Japanese woman. Criticizing her for being a ‘robot’ is no better than discriminating against people based on skin colour, race or gender. Artificially intelligent people are people too. We strongly condemn all forms of speciesism.”

The organizers of Miss World issued a similar statement: “We are delighted to welcome Erica into the Miss World Family. She is a wonderful role model for inter-species tolerance and android-human relations.”