Month: February 2019

To serve and satisfy: Lynn Stuart Parramore on sexist design of digital assistants

On By W.W. NortonIn How is Technology Changing Us?, What's Gender Got to Do with It?20 Comments

Siri. Alexa. It’s no coincidence that their voices carry easily identifiable traits of a young woman who is business-like yet eager to please. In this February 2019 essay from the NBC News blog Think, cultural historian Lynn Stuart Parramore argues that, as more and more companies introduce “she-bots” of their own,  “Big Tech is wiring …

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Easing the burden: Lamar Alexander on financing a college education

On By W.W. NortonIn What's College For?63 Comments

We all know that the price tag for college puts a degree out of reach for many people, and for many others, the debt from student loans is very high. Lamar Alexander, US senator from Tennessee and former Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush, has a proposal for easing some of the …

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