The Push For A Gender-Neutral Siri

NPR’s All Things Considered featured The Push for a Gender-Neutral Siri in a new segment of the iconic news program, highlighting the often overlooked fact that most virtual assistants started out female.

In this segment, NPR’s Laura Sydell brings to attention how the AI industry brings its own unconscious bias to the decision of the gender of virtual assistants, how those virtual assistants respond to and engage with humans, and the greater societal impact it brings:

“If you talk derogatory to an Alexa, children pick this up,” says LivePerson CEO Rob LoCascio. “They go back to school and they think this is the way you talk to someone and this is maybe the way you talk to women.”

Read and listen to the full segment on NPR’s site