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Sanitify is a series of mini-guides and explainers on some of the most urgent and complex issues around us. See the previous edition here.
A message for you from Lorraine, one of Sanity's best friends (not AI, even though her name contains the letters). This was to celebrate Sanity's previous birthday. The logo has changed since, have you noticed?
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Female voices and personas are the default in domestic robots and AI assistants. This creates multiple layers of harm by:
- Reinforcing problematic gender stereotypes and
- Endangering the mental health of vulnerable users.
I became acutely aware of this danger while playing with our household vacuum cleaner with my then six-year-old son, who took great delight in 'her' humanlike voice and unfailing obedience (barring bad WiFi). I had to struggle to get him to change 'its' pronoun to 'it'.
What's happening here, and why should you care?
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