


We've had Rosie the Roomba for years. She's still going strong, even though she gets stuck under the couch a lot.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4 ... tereotypesUN report: Female AI voices like 'Alexa' perpetuate harmful gender stereotypes
Female default voices for artificial intelligence personal assistants may inadvertently reinforce gender stereotypes, according to a study published by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
Default female voices for the devices, as well as names like Alexa and Siri, may precondition users toward antiquated views of women, according to the study. UNESCO also found assistants rarely have safeguards against abuse and gendered language. For example, Siri will respond to being told to make the user a sandwich with “I can’t. I don’t have any condiments,” according to the study. Insulting Siri prompts only the response “I’d blush if I could,” which is the title of the report.
“Because the speech of most voice assistants is female, it sends a signal that women are ... docile and eager-to-please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like ‘hey’ or ‘OK’. The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it. It honors commands and responds to queries regardless of their tone or hostility,” the report states.
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“Obedient and obliging machines that pretend to be women are entering our homes, cars and offices,” Saniye Gülser Corat, Director of Gender Equality at UNESCO, said in a statement. “Their hardwired subservience influences how people speak to female voices and models how women respond to requests and express themselves. To change course, we need to pay much closer attention to how, when and whether AI technologies are gendered and, crucially, who is gendering them.”
Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu May 23, 2019 1:42 pm Who else catches themselves thanking Alexa after it's performed a task?
Also, is there any chance we'll get an opportunity to buy different voices, like we used to do with our old GPS devices? I want Daffy Duck.
We have Moppy. We’re a little worried that Moppy is becoming self-aware...Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu Mar 14, 2019 8:41 amWe've had Rosie the Roomba for years. She's still going strong, even though she gets stuck under the couch a lot.
We recently bought Baby. Baby is a robot mop. He can't be scheduled, you just pop in his charged battery, add water and the appropriate mop head and put him on the floor. He wanders around until his battery peters out. Baby is very small, he can fit behind the toilet.► Show Spoiler
► Show Spoiler
We changed the wake word from Alexa to Echo because of a show we watch that has a character named Alexis. Everytime one of the other characters says "Alexis, blah, blah, blah," she'd wake up and say "I didn't understand that." We figured, between the three choices, Echo was the least likely to be mentioned off-handedly.Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2019 7:32 am Me (to ol' Wifehorn's new Echo Dot that I set up last night): Alexa, good morning.
Alexa (my Dot uses "Echo" as a Wake Word from now on): Good morning. Today is the first of the seven days of Kwanzaa, a holiday for African-Americans. If you want to know more about Kwanzaa, just ask me.
Our Alexa won’t answer to Alexis. My husband keeps complaining, “I can’t get the damned thing to respond! I say, ‘Alexis,’ and get nothing!”Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2019 10:15 amWe changed the wake word from Alexa to Echo because of a show we watch that has a character named Alexis. Everytime one of the other characters says "Alexis, blah, blah, blah," she'd wake up and say "I didn't understand that." We figured, between the three choices, Echo was the least likely to be mentioned off-handedly.Foggy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 26, 2019 7:32 am Me (to ol' Wifehorn's new Echo Dot that I set up last night): Alexa, good morning.
Alexa (my Dot uses "Echo" as a Wake Word from now on): Good morning. Today is the first of the seven days of Kwanzaa, a holiday for African-Americans. If you want to know more about Kwanzaa, just ask me.
We were because, i know, right? Then realized we talk about computers a lot.
Same -- we've modified pretty quickly though. Laptop, PC, desk...Slim Cognito wrote: ↑Sat Dec 28, 2019 4:51 pmWe were because, i know, right? Then realized we talk about computers a lot.