A service that uses AI to identify gender based on names looks incredibly biased

Some tech companies make a splash when they launch, others seem to bellyflop. Genderify, a new service that promised to identify someone's gender by analyzing their name, email address, or username with the help AI, looks firmly to be in the latter camp. The company launched on Product Hunt last week, but picked up a lot of attention on social media as users discovered biases and inaccuracies in its algorithms. Type the name "Meghan Smith" into Genderify, for example, and the service offers the assessment: "Male: 39.60%, Female: 60.40%." Other names prefixed with "Dr" produce similar results while inputs seem to generally skew male. "Test@test.com" is said to be 96.90 percent male, for example, while "Mrs Joan smith" is 94.10 percent male.