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Clippy....a PAPER CLIP!!!....was apparently too male looking........
And now they're saying Cortona and Siri are sexist in their own way by being creepy and they depict woman as unquestioning and complaining.
Quote:
Most of the women thought the characters were too male and that they were leering at them. So we’re sitting in a conference room. There’s me and, I think, like, 11 or 12 guys, and we’re going through the results, and they said, ‘I don’t see it. I just don’t know what they’re talking about.’ And I said, ‘Guys, guys, look, I’m a woman, and I’m going to tell you, these animated characters are male-looking.’
According to The Atlantic, Ho goes on to note that in the end, Clippy's creators just ignored this feedback because it didn't fit with what they were expecting to hear.
Although Clippy's implied sexuality was only a small part of what went wrong with the software, it's interesting to consider how little we've apparently learned from episodes like this. The latest crop of digital assistants like Apple's Siri and Microsoft's Cortana may not be leering and male, but they've certainly got their own gender issues.
While Clippy's personality was interfering and patronizing, Siri and Cortana are subservient to the point of creepiness, leading to accusations of latent sexism. Critics point out that these computer programs are marketed as real people, as real women, and they just happen to be unquestioning and compliant — implicitly confirming society's expectation of women.
Besides calling this complete insanity and stupid, what else can you even say. Im at a loss for words at the depths these people go to make issues where there is none. It is as if they have literally nothing to do all day but find things they think are sexist, racist, homophobic, bigoted, etc.
The MS Clippy (I didn't know that was what it was called) is thin and, therefore, makes fat people self-conscious about their body image. Also, if I recall correctly, you could not change the physical characteristics of the clip. Thus, it implied that only thin people were allowed to work. On the other hand, that clip was irritating was very irritating so perhaps the implication was that thin people are irritating.
Heavy eyebrows, long nose, gaping, leering grin...
Never had a run-in with it, though.
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