Congratulations, it’s a girl: Exploring sexism in artificial intelligence
The Works’ Tomas Haffenden considers what the rise of female voice activated assistants mean for the future, and what the ‘sea of dudes’ have to do with it all.
I have just had a baby girl. I mean it is probably worth noting my wife played some part in her gestation and delivery, but as a modern progressive couple I’ll assume a minimum of 50 percent of the credit.
Her arrival has made me consider what the world holds in store for this little female version of me. As I bark at Siri, holding my daughter in the dark, for a “how to” video on baby swaddling, I suddenly feel unsettled.
As it becomes second nature to bark orders at the ‘person in our pocket’, does it matter that this person seems to be a she? Over 710 million people regularly use an AI assistant and this is set to more than double by 2021. Should I be celebrating the female position as oracle, or furious that my daughter has been assigned the role of assistant in the world’s future?
It could be argued that assigning gender to an AI assistant is a moot point. When asked, Siri, Alexa, Cortana and Google Home, all respond with claims of gender neutrality.
Right – so if they all had male voices you’d claim that was sexist as well. You can never win when it comes to cancer like this.
Did you just assume Siri’s gender?
There are a plethora of diversity, representation, and inclusivity shortcomings in the technology industry – this is not one of them.
The declining number of women in computing roles since ’91 seems like a much more dire issue than why Siri is defaulted to female. I would have much preferred to read an article exploring the former.