Google Rolls Out Feature That Corrects You With Woke 'Inclusive' Language; Report
Google Rolls Out Feature That Corrects You With Woke 'Inclusive' Language; Report
Google’s
document editor will begin to correct the language of what people type to be more
‘inclusive’, according to a report in the Telegraph.
The article, headlined Big Brother (sorry,
Big Person) is correcting you on Google, outlines how
the company is to implement ‘inclusive warnings’ on Google Docs, suggesting
that users refrain from using terms such as ‘policeman’ or ‘landlord’, because
they are gendered.
The warnings will alert users that what they have typed “may not
be inclusive to all readers,” while suggesting users should “Consider
using different words,” offering woke corrections like ‘police officer’ or
‘property owner’.
The report notes, however, that even technical terms like ‘motherboard’ fall prey to Google’s woke correction.
When Googling John F. Kennedy’s inauguration speech, Google suggests that it should be corrected to ‘for all humankind’ instead of ‘for all mankind’.
Critics hit out at Google attempting to police and change
language, with Silkie Carlo, the director of rights group Big Brother Watch,
calling it “deeply intrusive.”
“With Google’s new assistive writing tool, the company is not
only reading every word you type but telling you what to type,” she noted.
“This
speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias.
Invasive tech like this undermines privacy, freedom of expression and
increasingly freedom of thought,” Carlo added.
Lazar Radic, a senior scholar in economic policy at the
International Centre for Law and Economics, noted that “Not only is this
incredibly conceited and patronising – it can also serve to stifle
individuality, self-expression, experimentation, and – from a purely
utilitarian perspective – progress.”
Radic explained, “What if ‘landlord’ is the better choice
because it makes more sense, narratively, in a novel? What if ‘house owner’
sounds wooden and fails to invoke the same sense of poignancy? What if the
defendant really was a ‘housewife’ – and refers to herself as such? Should all
written pieces – including written forms of art, such as novels, lyrics, and
poetry – follow the same, boring template?”
The feature on Google Docs, which could easily be shifted over
to its search engine, is now on by default for what the company has termed
‘enterprise-level users’.
Google has stated that “Assisted writing uses language
understanding models, which rely on millions of common phrases and sentences to
automatically learn how people communicate. This also means they can reflect
some human cognitive biases.”
So here
we have Google literally taking on the role of the Ministry of Truth from
Orwell’s 1984, policing language and making sure that its Newspeak is
implemented as much as possible.
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