Rebuilding AI Toward a Feminist Alexa

Why is it every time I'm yelling at self-checkout tills or rolling my eyes at task-based AI, it's always by-default a female voice annoying me? Is that my internal bias against fellow women? Or is it just that I'm frustrated with the beginnings of tech, but all those AI beginners seem to be "feminine?" These are the thoughts that ran through my head as I was listening to Dr. Charlotte Webb's talk "Designing a Feminist Alexa: An Experiment in Feminist Conversation Design" at Skills Matter London's Beyond Tech conference. And it's what we explored when we spoke, following her talk, on this episode of The New Stack Makers. Webb is a co-founder of the Feminist Internet, a non-profit organization on a mission to advance internet equalities for women and other marginalized groups through creative and critical practice. The Feminist Internet blends art and design practices, critical thinking, and creative tech development together with pilot projects and soon AI consulting.