Consider the artificially intelligent voices you hear on a regular basis. Are any of them men? Whether it's Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Amazon's Alexa, or virtually any GPS system, chances are the computerized personalities in your life are women. This gender imbalance is pervasive in fiction as well as reality. Films like "Her" and "Ex Machina" reflect our anxieties about what intelligent machines mean for humanity.

Last week at Microsoft's Build conference, CEO Satya Nadella said that the future of the company was "conversation as platform." In other words, less Windows and Office, and more Cortana and Tay--conversational interfaces that can understand the natural language of human users. If Nadella thought he was expressing some unique vision of the future, though, he was fooling himself. The idea of conversational UI has quickly colonized nearly every corner of Silicon Valley over the past year. Now seems like a good time to ask: What is a conversational interface?

The good: Amazon's Alexa voice interface can now work in new places The Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected smart speaker that can answer owners' verbal questions and requests, has quietly become one of the hottest gadgets of the past few months. And with the arrival of the new Tap and Dot Amazon is taking the Echo's smarts, powered by a Siri-like software called "Alexa," and packing them into two new form factors. The Tap is a smaller, mobile version of the Echo, whose power cord keeps it stuck indoors. The Dot is meant to connect to your existing sound system, bringing Echo's smarts to the speakers you already own. Both devices function almost identically to the Echo.

The good: Amazon's Alexa voice assistant comes to the speakers you already own Who should buy it: Audiophiles who want the Echo's smarts in their existing sound setups The Amazon Echo, an Internet-connected smart speaker that can answer owners' verbal questions and requests, has quietly become one of the hottest gadgets of the past few months. And with the arrival of the new Tap and Dot, Amazon is taking the Echo's smarts, powered by a Siri-like software called "Alexa," and packing them into two new form factors. The Tap is a smaller, mobile version of the Echo, whose power cord keeps it stuck indoors. The Dot is meant to connect to your existing sound system, bringing Echo's smarts to the speakers you already own. Both devices function almost identically to the Echo.

Microsoft's vision of enterprise mobility and how to improve employee engagement for digital transformation has long been mooted in this publication – yet at the Redmond giant's Envision conference today, CEO Satya Nadella discussed themes taking the collaboration element a step further. Building on the'conversation as a platform' concept discussed at Build last week, the Microsoft chief exec described how bots and artificial intelligence (AI) could transform business conversations by'taking the human language but applying it much more pervasively to computing'. "Think of bots that you will build as the new websites or mobile apps, and your customers will interact with your business through these bots," he told delegates. "We think it is going to be much more ubiquitous in terms of its deployment." These bots already exist in some contexts; New York-based startup x.ai offers an AI-powered personal assistant called Amy which schedules meetings.

Microsoft's Cortana takes its name from an AI character in the Halo video game series. These technologies all have one thing in common - they are digital servants aimed at a mass-market audience that feature a "female" voice or persona. Am I the only one that thinks that this more than a little creepy? No doubt you've also noticed that I've been putting the word "female" inside quotes, and that's very deliberate on my part. Despite how these technology solutions are packages to look, sound, or in the case of Tay and Xiaoice, behave, these digital characters are not female.

Scheduling a simple coffee meeting can take days and countless emails to complete, but Dennis Mortensen wants to change all that -- and more. In episode 623 of "This Week in Startups," the founder of x.ai show us his AI assistant, which sets meetings for you like an actual human. He also shares his thoughts on Siri, Echo, the Danish tax system, his vision for x.ai's AI assistants conquering other tasks, and the future of artificial intelligence. Throughout the episode, Jason and Dennis set up a meeting with each other using Amy, the x.ai assistant. After putting Amy to task, Dennis checks out of the email chain, and it's not at all obvious that Jason is talking to an AI.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has reshaped the company since taking over two years ago. Windows is still important, but it's no longer the only platform that matters: Microsoft is releasing software and supporting app development for Apple's iOS, Google's Android, and even its old enemy Linux. The infighting and aggressive dismissal of competitors is mostly gone. And Nadella has embraced cloud computing -- the idea that some customers don't want to run their own technology but would prefer to outsource it -- turning Microsoft into the clear No. 2 in the category after Amazon. We caught up with Nadella fresh off the company's Build conference for developers last week in San Francisco and ahead of the new Envision conference for business leaders, which kicks off Monday in New Orleans. Matt Rosoff: There was a lot of talk last week at Build about chatbots and artificial agents and "conversation as a platform." That idea is not new, right? I think I heard Bill Gates talking about it 15 years ago.

Just in time for the start of baseball season, Apple has beefed up Siri's knowledge of baseball stats, scores, and trivia. Siri can now do things like tell you Babe Ruth's career batting average, the lineup of the 2008 World Series winning Phillies, or even who won the World Series in 1934. Siri has also learned how to do league-level queries from 29 different baseball leagues, ranging from the Cape Cod League to Nippon Pro Baseball. While Siri won't support player-specific data from these leagues, she will return scores from all of them. While not necessarily an essential update, these new features are a fun way to get celebrate the return of baseball.

Just in time for the start of baseball season, Apple has beefed up Siri's knowledge of baseball stats, scores, and trivia. Siri can now do things like tell you Babe Ruth's career batting average, the lineup of the 2008 World Series winning Phillies, or even who won the World Series in 1934. Siri has also learned how to do league-level queries from 29 different baseball leagues, ranging from the Cape Cod League to Nippon Pro Baseball. While Siri won't support player-specific data from these leagues, she will return scores from all of them. While not necessarily an essential update, these new features are a fun way to get celebrate the return of baseball.