Kaveh Waddell, cybersecurity columnist at The Atlantic, suggests we need a new pronoun for artificial intelligence.
In our currently saturated sci-fi media landscape, we clearly have preconceived ideas about how an AI fits into our gender model. Smart, maybe helpful, AI is typically female, such as Apple’s Siri, the AI in Her, or the extremely sexualized robot in Ex Machina. Meanwhile, the malicious HAL9000 and Ultron are characterized as male. But why do we need to anthropomorphize this new form of life?
More than an “it,” but not quite a “he” or a “she,” AI is a new category of entity. But creating new pronouns is hard. Although many people prefer to be referred to using gender-neutral pronouns like “ze” rather than “him” or “her,” these pronouns haven’t caught on widely.
We’re a species that anthropomorphizes cars, consumer packaged goods, planets, ships — I don’t see us stopping any time soon, but it’s a fun liguistic exercise.
Read the article: The Atlantic