Disney to Test AI Bias Check for Representation in Television and Film

A recent UNESCO study took its title from a sentence that Apple’s female-gendered voice-assistant, Siri, was originally programmed to say in response to users calling her a sexist name: entitled “I’d Blush If I Could.” Apple finally updated Siri’s programming only at the beginning of 2019 to “I don’t know how to respond to that.” In light of the fact that Siri was released back in 2011, it seemed to not have bothered Apple much at all that it was assigning Siri such a coy, stereotypically feminine response that it was allowed to stay in the program for close to eight years. As the UNESCO report points out, ”Siri’s ‘female’ obsequiousness — and the servility expressed by so many other digital assistants projected as young women — provides a powerful illustration of gender biases coded into technology products." Such biases have not only plagued the technology sector, but the entertainment industry, as well. Of course, AI does not create bias, but it does reflect the prejudices of its programming. Now, though AI is being used to counter bias. Concern about the message about women’s roles that come through from how women appear or often fail to appear in films and television is what motivates the nonprofit work of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media. Its tagline is: “If she can see it, she can be it.”