Siri, Cortana, Alexa, Marcus. Do bots really need a gender?

They are in fact such a persistent feature in society that it is not unsurprising to find these stereotypes -- gender, in particular -- still perpetuated in the artificial intelligence bots that have been produced over the years. These gender stereotypes are played out in the roles that these bots are assigned to perform in an industry and their overall personalities. Female bots typically perform more administrative and secretarial roles such as assisting in the completion of routine tasks, scheduling meetings and customer service. Male bots on the other hand, often perform more analytical roles like providing financial advice and paralegal services. Recently, a growing group of companies have started to buck this trend by choosing to create gender-neutral bots instead, sparking discussions in the tech industry on the necessity and consequences of assigning gender (and with that stereotypical traits) to bots in the first place.