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World’s Wokest Tech Writer Comes Unglued Because Amazon’s Alexa Is Not A Feminist

(Photo: JOE KLAMAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Jena Greene Reporter
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Amazon’s voice assisting software Alexa is not woke enough for the fine people at The Atlantic.

That’s at least according to male writer Ian Bogost, who spent the latter half of his Wednesday criticizing Amazon for not designing a more progressive robot.

He begins:

As waves of sexual-harassment allegations crash against the shores of work culture, now is a good time to support women—even robots with female personas like Alexa. But let’s not give Amazon too much credit. The company gave Alexa a woman’s voice and name in the first place, and then set it up for ire and abuse by giving Alexa the impossible task of responding accurately to an infinity of requests and commands. Women don’t win here—only Amazon does, by reaping praise for having partly solved a problem that it first created.

Amazon must have some nerve to give a robot a female name. Who is Jeff Bezos to decide what gender the robot identifies with?

But he just can’t stop himself there. He has to go full-Ashley Judd on Amazon.

The moment one is tempted to call Echo or Home a “she,” a battle has already been lost. A truly feminist Alexa, one that might decouple service work from passive femininity, wouldn’t have been cast as “Alexa” to start with, but perhaps as a baritone named Alex instead.

What’s worse than a stereotypically subservient female automaton?

Umm, let’s see. Mass genocide? Slavery? Disrespecting our veterans? Child abuse?

Bogost’s highly flawed thesis is that Alexa cannot be a feminist because she completes tasks and helps people. Using this mindset, women will only achieve perceived equality when they stop working, stop contributing, and just shut their mouths.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that stand in direct contrast to the whole ‘Rosie The Riverter’ first wave feminist movement?

But the best part of the entire article is when Bogost steps in it himself without even realizing it.

When the robot does respond successfully, often its answers feel out of touch, inhuman even. “When did Mozart die?” for example, produces the over-detailed response, “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s date of death is Monday, December 5, 1791.” Probably “in 1791” would have been sufficient; adding “Monday” makes Alexa seem pedantic and sanctimonious—other bad traits that women are sometimes accused of harboring.

What’s he getting at here? That women are too detail oriented and preachy — and that it’s a gendered thing? This guy is so woke that he’s actually reaffirming stereotypes and reestablishing the gender divide. I can’t get enough of it.

It is arguments like these that will eventually put an end to the feminist movement — for better or for worse. Having the right to drive, vote, and go out in public is one thing. Marching with pink hats for rights you already have, claiming big corporations are enslaving women by putting them in machines, and freely abounding common decency is quite another.

You want to see real gender inequality? Buy a one way ticket to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, or Ghana. But let’s get one thing straight. Nobody loses their rights when you ask a piece of software to set a timer for 30 minutes.

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