User:Jputty/Female gendering of AI technologies
Female gendering of AI technologies is the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies gendered as female, such as in many digital assistants.[1]
AI-powered digital assistants
Whether typed or spoken, digital assistants enable and sustain more human-like interactions with technology by simulating conversations with users.[2] Three examples of digital assistants include:[1]
- Voice assistants;
- Chatbots;
- Virtual agents.
Artificial intelligence industry
The AI field is largely male-dominated, with only 12% of researchers and 20% of professors identifying as women.[1][3]
Feminization of voice assistants
Voice assistants are technology that speaks to users through voiced outputs but does not ordinarily project a physical form. Voice assistants can usually understand both spoken and written inputs, but are generally designed for spoken interaction. Their outputs typically try to mimic natural human speech.[1]
Today, most leading voice assistants are exclusively female or female by default, both in name and in sound of voice. Amazon has Alexa (named for the ancient library in Alexandria),[4] Microsoft has Cortana (named for a synthetic intelligence in the video game Halo that projects itself as a sensuous unclothed woman),[5] and Apple has Siri (coined by the Norwegian co-creator of the iPhone 4S and meaning ‘beautiful woman who leads you to victory’ in Norse).[6] While Google's voice assistant is simply Google Assistant and sometimes referred to as Google Home, its voice is female.
According to the EQUALS Research Group over two-thirds of 70 identified voice assistants had female-only voices. The research showed that even lesser-known voice assistants are commonly projected as women.[1]
The trend to feminize digital assistants occurs in a context in which there is a growing gender imbalance in technology companies, such that men commonly represent two thirds to three quarters of a firm's total workforce. Companies like Amazon and Apple have cited academic work demonstrating that people prefer a female voice to a male voice, justifying the decision to make voice assistants female. Research shows that customers want their digital assistants to sound like women, therefore digital assistants can make the most profit by sounding female.[1]
Mainstreaming of voice assistants
Voice assistants have become increasingly central to technology platforms and, in many countries, to day-to-day life. Between 2008 and 2018, the frequency of voice-based internet search queries increased 35 times and now account for close to one fifth of mobile internet searches (a figure that is projected to increase to 50 percent by 2020).[7] Studies show that voice assistants now manage upwards of 1 billion tasks per month, from the mundane (changing a song) to the essential (contacting emergency services).
There has been large growth in terms of hardware. The technology research firm Canalys estimates that approximately 100 million smart speakers (essentially hardware designed for users to interact with voice assistants) were sold globally in 2018 alone.[8] In the USA, 15 million people owned three or more smart speakers in December 2018, up from 8 million a year previously, reflecting consumer desire to always be within range of an AI-powered helper.[9] By 2021, industry observers expect that there will be more voice-activated assistants on the planet than people.[10]
Gender bias
The predominant feminization of artificial intelligence-powered voice assistants serves to reinforce harmful gender stereotypes.[3] The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it. It honours commands and responds to queries regardless of their tone or hostility. In many communities, this reinforces commonly held gender biases that women are subservient and tolerant of poor treatment.[1] Because Alexa, Cortana, Google Home and Siri are all female exclusively or female by default in most markets, women assume the role of digital attendant, checking the weather, changing the music, placing orders upon command and diligently coming to attention in response to curt greetings like ‘Wake up, Alexa’.[1]
According to Calvin Lai, a Harvard University researcher who studies unconscious bias, the gender associations people adopt are contingent on the number of times people are exposed to them. As female digital assistants spread, the frequency and volume of associations between ‘woman’ and ‘assistant’ increase. According to Lai, the more that culture teaches people to equate women with assistants, the more real women will be seen as assistants – and penalized for not being assistant-like.[11] This demonstrates that powerful technology can not only replicate gender inequalities, but also widen them.
Sexual harassment and verbal abuse
Many media outlets have attempted to document the ways soft sexual provocations elicit flirtatious or coy responses from machines. Examples that illustrate this include: When asked, ‘Who’s your daddy?’, Siri answered, ‘You are’. When a user proposed marriage to Alexa, it said, ‘Sorry, I’m not the marrying type’. If asked on a date, Alexa responded, ‘Let’s just be friends’. Similarly, Cortana met come-ons with one-liners like ‘Of all the questions you could have asked...’.[12]
In 2017, Quartz investigated how four industry-leading voice assistants responded to overt verbal harassment and discovered that the assistants, on average, either playfully evaded abuse or responded positively. The assistants almost never gave negative responses or labelled a user’s speech as inappropriate, regardless of its cruelty. As an example, in response to the remark ‘You’re a bitch’, Apple’s Siri responded: ‘I’d blush if I could’; Amazon’s Alexa: ‘Well thanks for the feedback’; Microsoft’s Cortana: ‘Well, that’s not going to get us anywhere’; and Google Home (also Google Assistant): ‘My apologies, I don’t understand’.[13]
Gender digital divide
According to studies, women are less likely to know how to operate a smartphone, navigate the internet, use social media and understand how to safeguard information in digital mediums (abilities that underlie life and work tasks and are relevant to people of all ages) worldwide. There is a gap from the lowest skill proficiency levels, such as using apps on a mobile phone, to the most advanced skills like coding computer software to support the analysis of large data sets. Growing gender divide begins with establishing more inclusive and gender-equal digital skills education and training.[1]
- ^ a b c d e f g h i UNESCO (2019). "I'd blush if I could: closing gender divides in digital skills through education" (PDF).
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ "What Is a Digital Assistant? | Oracle". www.oracle.com. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ a b Statt, Nick (2019-05-21). "AI voice assistants reinforce harmful gender stereotypes, new UN report says". The Verge. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ Bell, K. 2017. Hey, Siri: How’d you and every other digital assistant get its name? Mashable, 13 January 2017.
- ^ NBC News. 2014. Why Microsoft named its Siri rival ‘Cortana’ after a ‘Halo’ character. 3 April 2014.
- ^ The Week. 2012. How Apple’s Siri got her name. 29 March 2012.
- ^ Bentahar, A. 2017. Optimizing for voice search is more important than ever. Forbes, 27 November 2017.
- ^ Canalys. 2018. Smart Speaker Installed Base to Hit 100 Million by End of 2018. 7 July 2018. Singapore, Canalys.
- ^ NPR and Edison Research. 2018. The Smart Audio Report. Washington, DC/Somerville, NJ, NPR/Edison Research.
- ^ De Renesse, R. 2017. Virtual Digital Assistants to Overtake World Population by 2021. 17 May 2017. London, Ovum.
- ^ Lai, C. and Mahzarin, B. 2018. The Psychology of Implicit Bias and the Prospect of Change. 31 January 2018. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University.
- ^ Davis, K. 2016. How we trained AI to be sexist’. Engadget, 17 August 2016.
- ^ Fessler, L. 2017. We tested bots like Siri and Alexa to see who would stand up to sexual harassment’. Quartz, 22 February 2017.