Commentary: Thousands of Sexist AI Bots Could Be Coming. Here's How We Can Stop Them.

I recently overheard my 2-year-old daughter talking to Amazon's voice assistant Alexa, and two things struck me. First, she doesn't distinguish the disembodied voice from that of a regular human. Second, she barks orders at Alexa in a way that would be considered rude by any social convention. I was suddenly aware and troubled that Alexa is setting a terrible example for my daughter--that women are subservient, should accept rudeness, and belong in the home. All four of the major in-home artificial intelligence, or AI, assistants--Alexa, Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, and Microsoft's Cortana--speak by default with a female voice.