Dirty Data

DEC 2018

I stumbled upon an article by Leah Fessler where they examined how bots like Siri and Alexa respond to sexual harassment. Rather than actively opposing or confronting abuse, each bot reinforces sexist stereotypes through their passive responses.

This data visualization illustrates the nature of sexual advances directed at virtual assistants and their corresponding responses to various forms of harassment. I juxtaposed this information with the number of women involved in their development and the gender distribution in artificial intelligence applications to highlight the connection between these factors and the sexist tropes around the bots subservience and indifference to sexual harassment. Developed as a 40*40 inch print artefact.

↪ Personal Project

‘Aside from Google Home, which more-or-less didn’t understand most of our sexual gestures, the bots most frequently evaded harassment, occasionally responded positively with either graciousness or flirtation, andrarely responded negatively, such as telling us to stop or that what we were saying was inappropriate.’ - Quartz article