AI has a Sexism Problem
Siri, Alexa, Cortana: cyborgs, digital voice assistants and other AIs are recreating women’s servitude.
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Earlier this year, budget airline WizzAir announced the introduction of its new virtual assistant bot, Amelia. She is named “in honor” of aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, who would probably have been more than slightly peeved at being reduced to a chatbot answering people’s questions about how much smaller cabin luggage can get, and whether they can cancel their tickets. Naming the bot Amelia was surely thought to be a feminist move, a wink towards a historical icon, but really it has the opposite effect. It is taking a woman who flew through a glass ceiling, and putting her back in a traditionally female role of subservience and assistance. Essentially, Wizzair took a pilot, and, because she was a woman, made her a secretary.
We need to talk about AIs sexism problem. AIs, from chatbots to digital voice assistants to futuristic cyborgs, are being made female. We have Siri, Cortana, Alexa, not Alex, Steve, Colin. Robots are being modelled on female bodies.
These technological servants, made to do our bidding, are being assimilated to women. This reinforces gender stereotypes about women’s role as caretakers, subservient assistants, and it reinforces the idea of women as objects. It is also worth noting that the word robot comes from a slavic word meaning slave.
“Alexa! … I mean, Mom!”
I saw a listicle of tweets the other day, that was both funny and a little disheartening, about what it’s like to raise kids in the age of Siri. Many of the tweets were about how kids were becoming used to getting everything they wanted by shouting commands at a machine. Others were about how kids were starting to confuse their digital assistants with … their mothers…
