"We did it, Patrick! We made a technological breakthrough!"
A place for all those who loathe AI to discuss things, post articles, and ridicule the AI hype. Proud supporter of working people. And proud booer of SXSW 2024.
AI, in this case, refers to LLMs, GPT technology, and anything listed as "AI" meant to increase market valuations.
Transcript
Mastodon posts by @trenchworms@eldritch.cafe:
super revealing of the misogyny inherent to the space that "AI assistants" stopped being given feminine-coded names the moment tech chuds thought they were developing higher levels of autonomy
"i TELL Alexa what to do. i COLLABROATE with Chudbot. i will not reflect on this hierarchy at all."
Correlation is not causation.
Is it blatant? This feels like they're picking evidence to support the conclusion they already came to
Who has expressed the opinion in that quote they made up?
Purely an anecdote, but one of my colleagues refers to the robot as "Claudette". I insist on not giving it a gender or anthropomorhising it, it's an it, and I'll keep misgendering/deadnaming the robot forever.
Literally only one AI assistant Im aware of was given a feminine persona out the gate and thats Alexa which is Amazon's.
Every single other one has been purposefully kept gender neutral.
They intentionally gave Siri a gender neutral name ages ago cuz you can pick what its voice sounds like
Same for gemini, copilot, gpt....
Only 1 out of many agents had a female name, and it wasnt "tech bros" that named it.
And only one tool has been given a male name, Claude
cortana was named after the video game AI, which was definitely depicted as female
Siri is a girls name, though. In like ten different languages. It was the 12th most popular girls name in 2009, 2 years before Apple launched Siri in 2011. I understand that it was named for SRI, but it was still a feminine name.
The default voice is also fem
As someone who used dude-Siri when I still carried Apple hardware, people always asked why I changed it.
In my experience, GPS voices also tend to be feminine by default.
I think it's less true now than it once was, but I remembering hearing somewhere that pre-recorded messages on trains/subways/in stations tend to use feminine voices for information, and masculine voices for instructions.
There are definitely still times on the London Underground where you'll hear announcements that switch in the middle, and that does usually seem to be the pattern.
(I realise this doesn't really apply to GPSes, but your comment is what reminded me, so. 😅)
Defs true for NSW, Australia railways
Man says "smoking is not permitted", woman says "the next station is foo"
I first noticed as a child and it is one of the first times I remember thinking that society wants women to be servile.
but I remembering hearing somewhere that pre-recorded messages on trains/subways/in stations tend to use feminine voices for information, and masculine voices for instructions.
Dunno if this is still the case, but this was definitely true of the subway system in NYC when I lived there.
Female voice: the next stop is [x] street
Male voice: stand clear of the closing doors!
Also, Gemini is decidedly masculine, as it refers to the male twins Castor and Pollux, the plural of the latin geminus.
And Alexa was named after the library of Alexandria
But ma feminist rage!