Meet Eno the gender neutral AI: Capital One reveals 'binary' smart assistant after claims Siri and Alexa were sexist
Eno helps customers 'manage their money by texting in a conversational way'
When asked if it is a male or female, it responds 'binary'
By Reuters and Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com
In a world of female chatbots, one program has dared to refer to itself as 'binary'.
Named Eno, the gender-neutral virtual assistant was created by Capital One to help the bank's customers 'manage their money by texting in a conversational way'.
The robot is powered with artificial intelligence, allowing it to understand natural language, and when asked if it is a male or female, it responds 'binary'.
In a world of female chatbots, one program dares to refer to itself as 'binary'. Named Eno, the gender-neutral virtual assistant was created by Capital One Financial Corp to help the bank's customers 'manage their money by texting in a conversational way'
MEET ENO
Capital One Financial Corp has unveiled a chatbot to 'help the bank's customers 'manage their money by texting in a conversational way'.
Named Eno, the robot is gender-neutral - when asked if it is a boy or a girl, it answers 'binary'.
It is powered with artificial intelligence, allowing it to understand natural language.
Customers can ask questions with simple phrases.
Such as 'Eno pay my bill' or 'credit card' - it will bring up your current balance.
Eno was designed to help to relay account information and help customers pay their credit card bills.
And it is capable of responding to natural language – thanks to artificial intelligence.
For example, customers might ask Eno to show them their recent account balances or pay off a credit card bill.
The name given to the virtual assistant was not a coincidence, as Ken Dodelin, Capital One's vice president of digital product development, said the bank had deliberately chosen a gender-neutral name.
The reason is that female names among popular digital assistants has provoked criticism recently.
So when asked if it is either a boy or a girl, Eno will simply reply that it is 'binary'.
And being a banker, although a virtual one, its favorite color is green.
Not only can Eno converse in natural with humans, but it is also programmed to recognized certain emojis, since the images now play a major role in how we communicate.
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Users can prompt Eno to show them their account balance by sending the 'bag of money' emoji or can confirm a payment through the 'thumbs up' emoji.
Eno is currently being rolled out to a small pilot of customers, but Capital One has opened up a waiting list for those who want to converse with the gender-neutral Chabot about their account.
Eno is also programmed to recognized certain emojis, since the images now play a major role in how we communicate. Users can prompt Eno to show them their account balance by sending the 'bag of money' emoji
Although many of the popular virtual assistants are perceived as females, some firms have done extensive research prior to picking settling on a female voice and name.
'We asked a lot of customers and tested Alexa's voice with large internal beta groups before we launched, and this is the voice they chose,' an Amazon spokesperson told DailyMail.com in an email, regarding its Alexa virtual assistant.
'That being said, we believe Alexa exudes characteristics you'd see in a strong female colleague, family member or friend—she is highly intelligent, funny, well-read, empowering, supportive and kind. This is intentional.'
'Alexa is a self-identified feminist (ask her!) and a proponent of human rights in general—and that is incredibly core to her personality and the way she interacts with our broad customer base.
'As for how we selected the name Alexa, it's a homage to the Library of Alexandria.'
Although many of the popular virtual assistants are perceived as females, some firms have done extensive research prior to picking settling on a female voice and name. Amazon told DailyMail.com their test groups chose the female voice for Alexa
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) recently cited two studies that also investigate allegations of sexism, both of which found men and women considering female voices to be 'welcoming' and 'understanding'.
The first study was conducted by Karl MacDorman, a professor at Indian University, who designed an experiment with some of his colleagues.
There were 485 participants, 151 were men and 334 were women, who listened to male and female synthesized voices.
Following the task, both groups reported that the female voices sounded 'warmer'.
The WSJ recently cited two studies that also investigate allegations of sexism, both of which found men and women considering female voices, like the one used by Google's assistant (pictured is Google Home, which houses a virtual assistant) to be 'welcoming' and 'understanding'
HOW DOE WE REALLY FEEL ABOUT VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS?
Creative Strategies, a service that tracks trends and develops deeper insight into key industry topics, released their findings that looked at how consumers are using these virtual assistants and how they really feel about them.
The firm ran two studies: Once looked at Alexa that covered 1,300 early adopters across the US and the UK.
And the other focused on 500 mainstream consumers and their use of smartphones based digital assistants.
Creative Strategies revealed that 21% of its panel never used Siri, 43% never touched OK Google and 72% have never asked Cortana anything.
They also found that 2% of iPhone owners have never used Siri and only 4% of Android owners have never used OK Google, which suggests those who own the phone do indeed call on the powers of the digital personas.
Approximately 395 of consumers use their voice assistant in their home, 51 percent in the car, but only 1.3 percent at work and 6 percent in public.
Creative Strategies explains that the reason most usage is in the car is due to the hands-free law that regulates driving and texting.
Those who have never used a voice assistant reported feeling uncomfortable with talking to their technology – particularly in public.
And MacDorman also discovered after further testing that women had a 'stronger implicit preference for the female voice', reported Joanna Stern with WSJ, and men did not have an implicit preference to either male or female voices.
The second study comes from researchers at Stanford University, which found people do prefer male voices – but only when it is used to teach them about computers.
Computerized Female voices were only wanted when it came to giving love and relationship advice.
MacDorman, who is still working on this type of research, told WSJ that device designers face 'an ethical quandary'.
Apple added a male voice as an option for Siri three years ago. Research has shown that iPhone fans may trust male Siri's answers more than those that come from his female counterpart
'Maybe they shouldn't be reinforcing the stereotypes but challenging them or being neutral on them.'
Apple's Siri is the only voice assistant out of the bunch that lets users choose if they want to speak with a male or female voice- the firm unveiled the feature in 2013 in an iPhone update.
According to Clifford Nass, a professor at Stanford University in the US, research has shown that iPhone fans may trust male Siri's answers more than those that come from his female counterpart.
Nass, who studies people's interaction with technology, said: 'Female voices are seen, on average, as less intelligent than male voices.
'It's safer in a sense to have a male voice in the sense that you're not going to disappoint people as much.'
And male voice chosen is the same one used on the Apple Support Hotline and the United Airlines hotline.
The original creators of the technology behind Siri, which was snapped up first by Apple, are said to have envisaged multiple Siri characters and wanted to install technology that would see the iPhone mimic it's user way of talking.
But Nass said that Apple risks alienating customers by offering a choice of male or female Siri.
He told the Huffington Post that men and women tend to use different dialect as well as sounding different.
He said that unless the software sees separate dialects recorded for the male and female Siris then users won't trust the interface.
Leila Takayama, a research scientist at Willow Garage, a robotics firm, said that having a choice of voices may lead users to see Siri as more of a technology than a personality.
Experts claimed when Siri was initially launched that dominant gender stereotypes in different nations dictated whether a male or female voice was used.
Alexa, Siri, Cortana: The Problem With All-Female Digital Assistants - WSJ
Amazon Echo - Alexa Voice Service - Amazon.co.uk
Capital One launches Eno the gender neutral AI assistant