More inclusive products by Google
Before launching the digital voice assistant in 2016, Google tasked a team of employees to address all the race and gender issues. This revolves mainly issues associated with the service in order to permit users to speak their thoughts without feeling afraid. There are many companies that recieved critique for products and services that discriminate against marginilisez groups. This would be a serious blow to any company who has their product publically launched.
“The AI assistant we use does not understand these holidays,” the team lamented in an email sent to their boss. “We identified 28 problems so far.” In addition, he sometimes used incorrect pronouns, e.g., presenting doctors only as men, and he did not respond appropriately to someone admitting homosexuality for the first time to the voice assistant.
One grand achievement through this effort is the process of incorporating technologies into existing products. For example, with those best practices, now employees can work smartly on designing the next generation of products without needing to do extensive research or collaborate with external experts.
The goal of Google is to create products that won’t discriminate based on anything, including ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or disability.
“Our goal is to work with teams,” says Annie Jean-Baptiste, head of inclusion, research, and product enablement. “If they’re launching a new feature or product, we want to be with them. We want to ensure that the product is built inclusively.” This function is becoming increasingly important as large tech companies like Google face public criticism over discrimination issues. At the same time, we are at a time when tech companies face accusations of lacking diversity in their ranks.
Google’s Past Accusations
Google itself has found itself in the throes of diversity-related problems. Two years ago, a viral letter from one of its employees became public. The company, faced accusation of paying women less than men. Last year, over 20,000 Silicon Valley workers employed by Google sued the company for failing to prevent and adequately preventing sexual harassment cases on the job. Not only was the case of racism in Google’s search engine all over the media, but what happened to the gorilla images? There is no case of extreme racism that occurred with Google.
Kellie McElhaney, director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership at Berkeley is not convinced of Google’s good intentions. She also mentions that the company isn’t doing enough to prevent the next instance of discrimination against marginilised groups. “I’m not sure it’s a top priority for them right now,” she points out. “So far, they’re mostly reacting rather than preventing,” she concludes.
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Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
