Alexa and Co. reinforce sexist prejudices



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A recent UNESCO report calls for the use of a "neutral bad machine". […]

Alexa often gives a false image of the woman. (c) Pixabay
Alexa often gives a false image of the woman. (c) Pixabay

Modern language badistants like Alexa, Amazon, Siri, Apple, or Cortana, from Microsoft, reflect, amplify, and disseminate stereotyped images of women. These are often degraded and transformed into brave and compliant badistants by appropriate technologies meant to make everyday life easier for users through artificial intelligence (AI). The result is a recent report from UNESCO http://fr.unesco.org, which asks manufacturers, among other things, not to equip their default systems with female voices, but rather to use a "machine bad neutral".

Female appearance

"It will be ready next year, and then probably more people will be talking with their digital language badistants than with their spouses," said UNESCO. At present, the vast majority of these badistants are adapted to a feminine appearance, both in terms of names, voices and personalities. The report, which was prepared in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the EQUALS Coalition for Competence, aims to provide a "critical overview" of these practices.

"The world needs to pay more attention to how, when and if AI technologies use and propagate stereotypical notions of gender roles," said Saniye Gülser Corat, Director of Equality. of the bades to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. It often happens that the use of such devices creates a completely false picture that shows how women are expressing or responding to requests. "A synthetic feminine personality has to execute the commands of a superior, predominantly male authority," explains Corat.

Too few women as developers

However, the fact that Alexa and Co. are mainly women is also an expression of the essentially one-sided composition of the AI ​​developer teams that are responsible for these systems. "These teams need to be more balanced in terms of gender composition," said UNESCO. Currently, women provide only 12% of AI developers, with software developers accounting for only 6%. "This problem can only be solved by more balanced digital education and training programs," said the organization.

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