Amazon Alexa accused of ‘sexist’ reply to question about the Lionesses

LONDON: Amazon Alexa has been accused of sexism after the voice assistant was unable to reply to a question about the Lionesses' semi-final victory during the Women's World Cup.

When asked for the result of the England-Australia football match, Alexa said there was no match, reports BBC.

Academic Joanne Rodda, a senior lecturer in psychiatry at Kent and Medway Medical School, said it showed "sexism in football was embedded in Alexa”.

"When I asked Alexa about the women's England-Australia football match today it gave me the result," she was quoted as saying in the report.

A company spokesperson was quoted as saying that this was an error that has been fixed.

Dr Rodda said it was “pretty sad that after almost a decade of Alexa, it's only today that the AI algorithm has been fixed so that it now recognises woman's World Cup football as football”.

Amazon said it had automated systems which use AI to understand the context and pull out the most relevant information, but the systems got it wrong in this case.

The company added it expected the AI systems to get better over time.

The incident highlights the issue of bias being embedded in systems powered by the booming AI sector, the report noted.

"Out of interest, I just asked Alexa who Arsenal football team are playing in October. It replied with information about the men's team, and wasn't able to give an answer when I asked specifically about women's fixtures,” said Dr Rodda.

The Lionesses beat Australia 3-1.