As new technologies take on increasingly humanlike qualities, there’s been a push to make them genderless. Apple’s Siri digital assistant unveiled a gender-neutral option last year, and when asked about their gender identities, the AI chatbots ChatGPT and Google Bard each reply, “I do not have a gender.”

There have been concerns over gendering technology, since doing so reinforces societal stereotypes. That happens because the stereotypes commonly associated with men, such as competitiveness and dominance, are more valued than those associated with women. That is likely true, says Ashley Martin, a professor at Stanford University. “People are stereotyping their gendered objects in very traditional ways,” she says.

Removing gender from the picture altogether seems like a simple way to fix this. Yet, as Martin has found in her latest research, conducted with Malia Mason, of Columbia Universty, gender is one of the fundamental ways people form connections with objects, particularly those designed to evoke human characteristics.

Throughout the experiments, Martin and Mason found that gender increased users’ feelings of attachment to devices such as digital voice assistants –– and their interest in purchasing them. For example, participants said they would be less likely to buy a genderless voice assistant than versions with male or female voices.

Hope Reese. Is That Self-Driving Car a Boy

or a Girl? In: Insights by Stanford Business. Internet: <www.gsb.stanford.edu> (adapted).