Tough Questions

Objectifying women to promote sales is an age old technique. But is it right to blame a company for showing what (many) people obviously want to see? Is it even fair to expect a company to follow a code of morality that many of us want but is not even close to reality?

Microsoft, a company I don’t exactly like, is the trigger for these questions. At the 2016 Game Developers Conference, writes TC Sottek:

“Attendees of Microsoft's GDC party were greeted by women dancing on platforms — a choice made not by the venue but by Microsoft.”

(In case you’re wondering, this wasn’t a Windows or Office launch! It was a forum to show the latest from Microsoft’s video/computer games division. Such games appeal to a mostly male audience, hence…).

Many of us can agree with Sottek’s lament:

“Conferences like CES and E3 were notorious for many years for using "booth babes" to promote their brands and products by baiting the male gaze.”

But is Microsoft (or any other gaming company) to blame for that? Aren’t they just giving the public what they want? Sure, we might want companies to behave more “responsibly” (whatever that means), but c’mon, when was the last time that a company influenced your morals or values by their actions in a positive way?

On the bad publicity front, the week got even worse for Microsoft. Here is what happened:

“Microsoft unveiled Tay — a Twitter bot that the company described as an experiment in "conversational understanding." The more you chat with Tay, said Microsoft, the smarter it gets, learning to engage people through "casual and playful conversation."”

But within less than 24 hours of launch:

“Pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And Tay — being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection — started repeating these sentiments back to users, proving correct that old programming adage: flaming garbage pile in, flaming garbage pile out.”

Or as one guy tweeted:

“"Tay" went from "humans are super cool" to full nazi in <24 hrs.="" o:p="">

But doesn’t this raise certain deeper questions:

“It's a joke, obviously, but there are serious questions to answer, like how are we going to teach AI using public data without incorporating the worst traits of humanity?”