TEXTO PARA A QUESTÃO
Assigning female genders to digital assistants such as
Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa is helping entrench harmful
gender biases, according to a UN agency.
Research released by Unesco claims that the often
submissive and flirty responses offered by the systemsto many
queries – including outright abusive ones – reinforce ideas of
women as subservient.
“Because the speech of most voice assistants is female, it
sends a signal that women are obliging, docile and eager‐to‐
please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a
blunt voice command like ‘hey’ or ‘OK’”, the report said.
“The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the
commander asks of it. It honours commands and responds to
queries regardless of their tone or hostility. In many
communities, this reinforces commonly held gender biases
that women are subservient and tolerant of poor treatment.”
The Unesco publication was entitled “I’d Blush if I Could”;
a reference to the response Apple’s Siri assistant offers to the
phrase: “You’re a slut.” Amazon’s Alexa will respond: “Well,
thanks for the feedback.”
The paper said such firms were “staffed by overwhelmingly
male engineering teams” and have built AI (Artificial
Intelligence) systems that “cause their feminised digital
assistants to greet verbal abuse with catch‐me‐if‐you‐can
flirtation”.
Saniye Gülser Corat, Unesco’s director for gender equality,
said: “The world needs to pay much closer attention to how,
when and whether AI technologies are gendered and,
crucially, who is gendering them.”
The Guardian, May, 2019. Adaptado.