联合国教科文组织批评AI语音助手：存在性别偏见
近日，联合国教科文组织（UNESCO）发布一份146页的报告《如果我能，我会脸红》（I'd blush if I could）批评多数AI语音助手中潜藏着的性别偏见问题。
报告指出，Alexa和Siri等多数人工智能语音助手将声音默认设置为女声，且强化了千篇一律的、顺从的女性形象。
AI Voice Assistants Reinforce Gender Biases, U.N. Report Says
TIME
Artificial intelligence voice assistants with female voices reinforce existing gender biases, according to a new United Nations’ report.
The new report from UNESCO, entitled “I'd Blush If I Could,” looks at the impact of having female voice assistants, from Amazon's Alexa to Apple's Siri, projected in a way that suggests that women are “subservient and tolerant of poor treatment.”
The report takes its title from the response Siri used to give when a human told her, “Hey Siri, you're a bitch.”
Further, researchers argue that tech companies have failed to take protective measures against abusive or gendered language from users.
subservient
1) 表示“恭顺的，屈从的，卑躬屈膝的（用于表示某人太软弱无能）”，英文解释为“always obeying another person and doing everything they want you to do – used when someone seems too weak and powerless”举个🌰：
He remained entirely subservient to his father.
他一直对他父亲百依百顺。
2) 表示“次要的，从属的”，英文解释为“less important than something else”举个🌰：
The rights of the individual are made subservient to the interests of the state.
个人权利被要求服从于国家利益。
gendered
英文解释为“reflecting the experience, prejudices, or orientations of one sex more than the other”，如“gendered languge”表示“性别化语言”。
选自网站：British Council
“Because the speech of most voice assistants is female, it sends a signal that women are obliging, docile and eager-to-please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like ‘hey’ or ‘OK,'” the researchers write.
“The assistant holds no power of agency beyond what the commander asks of it. It honors commands and responds to queries regardless of their tone or hostility.”
Research has long found that AI intelligence has a problem with gender and racial biases. The use of smart speakers is continuing to grow rapidly — the research firm Canalys said last year that about 100 million smart speakers would be sold in 2018.
obliging
obliging /əˈblaɪdʒɪŋ/ 表示“乐于助人的”，英文解释为“If you describe someone as obliging, you think that they are willing and eager to be helpful.”举个🌰：
He is an extremely pleasant and obliging man.
他这人非常和蔼可亲，且乐于助人。
docile
docile /ˈdəʊsaɪl/ 表示“ 驯服的，容易控制的，温顺的；易管教的”，英文解释为“quiet and easily controlled”举个🌰：
Labradors are gentle, docile dogs.
拉布拉多犬温和驯服。
blunt /blʌnt/
1) 此处作形容词，表示“（说话）不客气的，直言不讳的，耿直的”，英文解释为“speaking in an honest way even if this upsets people”举个🌰：
To be blunt, many of the candidates cannot read or write.
说得不客气一点，很多申请人都不会读写。
His blunt words hurt her.
他一番唐突的话伤害了她。
2) 还可作动词，表示“减弱（情感）”，英文解释为“to make a feeling less strong”举个🌰：
The bad weather blunted their enthusiasm for camping.
糟糕的天气冲淡了他们去露营的热情。
▲ Is my phone sexist?
“Technology always reflects the society in which it is developed,” Saniye Gülser Corat, UNESCO’s Director for Gender Equality, tells TIME. “The biases reflect an attitude that almost condones a ‘boys will be boys’ attitude and it magnifies gender stereotypes.”
Corat says the female voices and personalities projected on to AI technology reinforces the impression that women typically hold assistant jobs and that they should be docile and servile.
While moving forward in technological developments, she says companies putting out AI machines are moving backward to a Mad Men-like era, where women were expected to serve rather than lead.
“Stereotypes do matter because they come back to affect how young girls and young women see themselves and the way they have dreams and aspirations for the future,” she says. “It's almost like going back to the image of women that was held in the 1950 or 1960s.”
condone
表示“纵容”，英文解释为“If someone condones behaviour that is morally wrong, they accept it and allow it to happen.”举个🌰：
I have never encouraged nor condoned violence.
我从来没有鼓励或纵容过暴力行为。
servile
表示“奴性的；恭顺的”，英文解释为“If you say that someone is servile, you disapprove of them because they are too eager to obey someone or do things for them.”举个🌰：
He was subservient and servile.
他恭敬顺从，卑躬屈膝。
put out
含义比较多，列举几个：
1) 表示“把…放好备用”，英文解释为“If you put out things that will be needed, you place them somewhere ready to be used.”举个🌰：
She had put out her luggage for the bus.
她放好了行李准备乘公车。
2) 表示“大量生产”，英文解释为“to produce something in large quantities, so that it can be sold”举个🌰：
They put out millions of pairs of shoes a year.
他们一年生产成百上千万双鞋。
3) 表示“播出；制作（电视或广播节目）；出版（书刊等）”，英文解释为“to broadcast or produce something for people to read or listen to”举个🌰：
They put out a half-hour programme on young refugees.
他们制作了一档关于年轻难民的节目，时长为半小时。
stereotype
表示“模式化形象；成见”，英文解释为“A stereotype is a fixed general image or set of characteristics that a lot of people believe represent a particular type of person or thing.”举个🌰：
There's always been a stereotype about successful businessmen.
对成功的商人们总有一种成见。
image
表示“（尤指对某人或某物的）印象，形象”，英文解释为“a picture that you have in your mind, especially about what someone or something is like or the way they look.”举个🌰：
He had the clearest image in his mind of his mother and father.
他脑海中对父母的印象极其清晰。
补充短语：be the image of sb
表示“酷似某人”，英文解释为“f you are the image of someone else, you look very much like them.” 举个🌰：
Her son was the image of his father.
她的儿子酷似他的父亲。
The report calls for more women to be involved in the creation of technologies used to train AI machines, citing research from Science that finds that such machines “must be carefully controlled and instilled with moral codes.”
Researchers also call for tech companies to train AI machines to respond to human commands and questions in gender-neutral ways by establishing gender-sensitive data sets for use in AI applications. The bulk of the data used to train the machines now is sexist, they find.
“Machine learning is ‘bias in, bias out,'” they write. “A voice assistant's educational diet is of vital importance.”
instil/ instill
及物动词，表示“逐渐灌输”，英文解释为“If you instil an idea or feeling in someone, especially over a period of time, you make them think it or feel it.”举个🌰：
The tough thing is trying to instil a winning attitude in the kids.
困难在于要尽力给孩子们灌输胜利的心态。
the bulk of
表示“大部分”，英文解释为“The bulk of something is most of it.”举个🌰：
The bulk of the text is essentially a review of these original documents.
正文的大部分基本上是对这些原始文献的回顾。
- END -
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