Leftists bombard America with their “woke” policies, so much so that it appears at times that sanity is losing. However, the opposite is true.
The “woke” are getting their asses kicked daily.
Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk aside, woke experienced another serious blow. As Google paused the new “inclusive language” function it rolled out last month.
The controversial feature flagged what some dictator at Google deemed potentially inappropriate language. Further, the feature prompted Google Docs users to replace the language with alternative terms.
In the example above, Google recommends replacing “chairman” with “chairperson”. So what- you ARE talking about a man, thus chairman stands.
In another example, the online word processor suggested replacing words such as “mankind” with “humankind,” “housewife” with “stay-at-home-spouse” and “landlord” with “property owner.”
Using an inappropriate or non-inclusive term would prompt a pop-up message that reads:
“Inclusive warning. Some of these words may not be inclusive to all readers. Consider using different words.”
At least they aren’t DEMANDING a different choice of words, right? At least not yet!
For now, the tech giant decided to disable the “inclusive language” feature, temporarily. The excuse given is that Google intends to make further improvements to the AI-powered tool. As of April 26, the feature was no longer available on Google Docs.
Blame it on the AI
According to Google spokesperson Jenny Thomson, the feature is a “form of AI that uses language understanding models, based on millions of common phrases and sentences, to automatically learn how people communicate and suggest changes.”
“However,” she explained, “inclusive language suggestions- an assisted writing feature- can over or under-correct certain phrases. We’re looking more carefully at the inclusive language suggestions and have paused those for further review while we continue to improve this feature.”
Google apparently planned to enter the business of improving writing, competing with companies like Yoast. Thus, Google AI would look for active voice versus passive voice, and other elements that make for better writing.
The changes were made available to users with Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus and Education Plus accounts.
And while Google may have had good intentions, the new features were torched by users from the moment of rollout.
As one might imagine, people were concerned about privacy. The fact that Google would analyze one’s writings to such a granular level was scary. As Silkie Carlo, the director of nonprofit privacy campaigning organization Big Brother Watch commented, Google’s new AI-powered features “aren’t assistive, they’re deeply intrusive.”
“This speech-policing is profoundly clumsy, creepy and wrong, often reinforcing bias,” she added. “Invasive tech like this undermines privacy, freedom of expression and increasingly freedom of thought.”
But Carlo wasn’t the only naysayer, as Vice editors reportedly found inconsistencies in Google’s new features. And their findings presented bad optics for the feature.
In one example, a transcribed interview of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke did not receive any suggestions despite his use of the N-word. Further, Duke made numerous references to hunting Black people.
Room for Improvement
Obviously Google’s interpreter needs improvement, as Google admits:
“Assisted writing uses language understanding models, which rely on millions of common phrases and sentences to automatically learn how people communicate,” the representative told Vice. “This also means they can reflect some human cognitive biases. Our technology is always improving, and we don’t yet (and may never) have a complete solution to identifying and mitigating all unwanted word associations and biases.”
In other words, Google wanted on the pronoun bandwagon. But they just couldn’t make it happen. Which leaves me to wonder how long it will be before Google has it’s own Elon Musk makeover.
