The Woman Behind the Voice
The real Siri exposes gender bias in Ai.
85% of young women seek health advice via their smart devices. Yet ‘How do I check my breasts?’ is just one of the life-saving questions that Siri can’t answer. But when it comes to men’s health, she can tell you how to check your testicles (or balls or nuts) for signs of cancer.
Even though Siri can’t give women the health advice they need, the woman behind her voice can. For International Women’s Day 2020, I Touch Myself Project partnered with Karen Jacobsen, the real Siri, whose voice is heard on over a billion devices worldwide.
We worked with the University of Technology’s Protospace lab to do a full 3D body scan of Karen and made a digital avatar of the woman behind the voice. By giving Siri a body and a voice of her own that wasn’t censored,, she could now tell—and show—women how to do a breast check, while skirting around nudity censorship guidelines on social media
We lobbied Apple to #UnbiasSiri and created a ‘Touch Yourself’ Alexa Skill, so Australian Amazon devices can now inform women how to self-check.
Awards One Show, Spikes, Shortlisted for the 2021 Glass Award for Change.