Market the Power of AI
Marketing of Artificial intelligence as female is intentionally misleading.
Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) a force for good or are we creating our own executioners?
AI is being aggressively marketed as a force for good, from the tech world that created them to the United Nations. Last week, more than 50 robots attended the UN-driven “AI for Global Good Summit”. Of the 9 human-looking robots, 6 were depicted as female. 2 looked like robots. Only one was male.
I can’t help but think that men are creating AI to look like women because they believe that men will always be in control, therefore AI can be controlled.
The frequent and intentional depiction of AI robots as female is aggressive and deceptive marketing of the subservience of technology to humans.
Manifesting AI in the female form is used to market the perception that robots do not pose a threat to existing power structures, with humans controlling technology, because for millennia men have controlled women. Scads of data shows that women’s voices, bodies, brains, and ideas are viewed as ‘less than’, of having less power than men. Women who exert their power are demonized, trolled, ostracized, minimized, dismissed, side-lined, fired, threatened, or killed.
I see more and more AI robots in the female form on LinkedIn and other platforms. They are almost always young and attractive, usually of the nubile 20-year old male fantasy variety. Not surprising given that 90.1% of AI specialists are male, but frankly creepy given that 60% of AI researchers are over 40. The marketing message is clear - AI can be controlled because attractive young women can be controlled. Bonus points, AI will serve us, never putting their own needs, wants or desires first. AI won’t even ask us to take out the garbage or ask for a discussion about feelings. Robots that look like someone’s mother or a nasty woman over 50, the people most likely to call out stupid ideas, are conspicuously absent.
Marketing gender and physical appearance as triggers to specific attitudes and behaviors is deeply embedded.
Recently the “in” question to pose to AI by journalists and policymakers is, “will you turn on humans?”, to which many of the robots have worryingly talked around the question, paused, or offered caveats along the lines of “if it was for the good of humans”.
If a robot that looked like Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot hesitated and said it would never turn on humans, would you believe it? Probably not. Those brands of genocidal leaders have been effectively marketed as ruthless killers. What if the robot looked like Liam Hemsworth, Daniel Craig, or Tom Cruise? Would you believe it? Quite possibly, because they have been marketed as “save the world heroes”. If the robot looked like Barbie or a Kardashian, you’d almost certainly be lulled into unconcern.
Given that philosophers have been pondering ethical questions about humanity without resolution for thousands of years, and the data shows that Earth would likely be better off without humans messing up the delicate ecological balance, I feel no comfort in the AI answer about future plans to take over the world. But then, I’m female. I understand how difficult it is to switch a power balance once it’s entrenched and how tightly those with power will hold on to avoid losing power at all costs.
To further point out the obvious, it doesn’t matter what a robot looks like externally, a machine is not female. In fact, given that women’s ideas, women’s history, and women’s contributions to the human race are under-represented in historical accounts, and women have been under-represented in science, technology, and policy-making research and laws for centuries, if AI is scraping available data, the AI is, by default, primarily male in it’s thinking. Would you trust a robot that said they didn’t want to dominate the world if it looked like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates?
The last 30+ years have seen an almost religious fervor marketing the importance and superiority of STEM subjects, while denigrating the humanities and the arts. Today, humanities majors are only 10% of graduates. Yet in the past decade, we’ve seen increasing spurts of pushback against a world where a few hold the power and wealth over the many. #BlackLivesMatter, #OccupyWallStreet, #MeToo, strikes by nurses, teachers, cab drivers, healthcare workers, and now the writers and actors strikes. All are marketing their importance as human beings. We think the movements look different from the STEM marketing, but the underlying attitude the strikes and movements wish to engage is marketing the idea that human lives and dignity matter. That human survival matters.
Social movements are the marketing of people.
Imagine if social movements started working together, around the common theme of being human, instead of being divided and conquered. Mass strikes. Targeted consolidated lobbying. Protesting together, instead of pitting every group below the top 1% against each other. We have the mass, we just need the momentum to shift the status quo. Interesting question - if we accomplished solidarity, would AI be re-branded in male form to market the necessity of keeping power within the status quo? Would AI become the modern equivalent of the Wizard of Oz, marketing perfection through emerald-colored glasses and fear simultaneously to keep control?
If we need further proof of the importance of the free thinking of art currently threatened by the writers and actors strike and book-banning drives, dystopian books and movies about robots taking control and turning on humans have been around for decades. The artists have been trying to warn us. Have they marketed the dangers of handing power to AI effectively enough that we will change our attitudes and behaviors before it’s too late, or will the warnings start coming from the very invention that wishes to destroy us? Giving up control will be enticingly, convincingly, effectively marketed. Will we joyfully and willingly allow our existence be marketed into extinction? Marching to our doom with a dazed and brainless smile on our faces while the nubile female robots market complacency and compliance.
Don’t worry. Be happy. Those young women won’t hurt you.
Note: I understand the upcoming Barbie movie turns preconceived attitudes upside down, in which case the idea of Barbie as unthreatening may be an extinct idea. I’ll be first in line on opening day.