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Gender, bias and stereotypes: the ethical dilemmas in voice

Hear Nicky Birch and Kane Simms weigh in on topics regarding the ethics of building voice-based interfaces.

You read in the previous step about how Google received criticism for their Duplex product on launch because it failed to announce itself in the demonstration as a voice-activated product. It appeared to imitate a human and the person receiving the call did not seem to notice they were speaking with a voice assistant. Users were therefore concerned about the ethics about what this might mean for the future of this technology.

Voice products have also been in the news for containing unconscious bias in the way they have been made.

The concept of whether a voice assistant should be gender-neutral is also being explored with Q – the first genderless voice assistant.

Here we explore some of the areas of debate regarding ethics in voice technology, with our experts.

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Introduction to Conversational Interfaces

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