Inclusive robots: How to avoid gender stereotypes in Artificial Intelligence solutions?

One of the most common themes when talking about robots is that they replicate many of the biases that we currently live, perpetuating stereotypes of all kinds. For this reason, we want to share some tips to avoid gender stereotypes in Artificial Intelligence. And reduce these types of biases and take advantage of technology to bridge these gaps.

At Xira, we recommend that you follow the design process developed by the BBVA Innovation Laboratory, where different aspects are taken when creating a bot.

1. Bot designer

It is necessary to review what are the strengths and opportunities of the person who designs the bot. Do you have any preferences? How can we complement them with other points of view?

2. Biases

Another important point is to review what is the vision of the company and how the design of the robot can influence this vision, for example, within the team. What are your beliefs? What is the status? Do they all have the same class? According to that, you can watch patterns that you may be replicating in your bot.

3. Objective

It is necessary to review what the goal of the robot is. Do we want to recruit 200 candidates a week? o Do you want to take advantage of the robot to inform? According to the robot’s objective, it is easier to map its behavior and how to avoid perpetuating stereotypes.

4. Define personality

The bot must have a certain personality to communicate the coherence of your brand. However, in developing this personality, you should check that the robot has the desirable behaviors in any type of person. For example, suppose your robot’s personality is female. In that case, you can add modules for understanding rudeness and prevent it from responding positively to them. In this way, you prevent stereotypes from being perpetuated.

5. Iterations

One more step that we recommend is that once the chatbot is active, it is important to monitor user conversations with this bot to improve the conversation, adjust the scripts and add topics.

Likewise, we recommend that three basic skills of any designer should be to constantly question their actions, actively listen, be open to feedback, and observe their actions to raise awareness of possible stereotypes that may be perpetuated.