The (non)sense of gender-free in conversational AI

20/01/2021
(Why) should technology have a gender?

Why are all voice devices female? Is that actually a bad thing? And what does this do to/for how we perceive women and gender equality? Is this making an improving for all of us or should we be concerned about something?

On 20 January I gave a presentation at the Women in Voice Netherlands (online) meetup about genderfreetech, how I see it and what I’ve learned from both being in tech and diversity & inclusion for years as well as insights I got from ready a series of really good books on this subject.

Below you find my presentation addressing the following topics:

  • What do I mean by Gender-Free; I’ll take you along on my journey of exploration
  • Does everything need to be gender-neutral? Spoiler alert: Hell NO!
  • That ‘thing’ about gender; what’s going on? why is that? Symptoms & underlying causes. In short: Bias and by Binary Thinking
  • Opportunities & Possible Solutions

Want to know more about it, or want to create positive change? Feel free to contact me. I’d be happy to present, give workshops or work with you on co-creating great technology solutions that benefit everyone.

Marion