On May 6, Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO and co-founder of Ola shared a screenshot of linkedIn AI chatbot’s response to the question “who is Bhavish Aggarwal?” The highlight of this response was the use of the gender neutral pronoun “they” rather than “him” to address the CEO.
Apparently, chatbot’s gender sensitivity failed to impress him as he captioned the post saying “Hoping that this ‘pronoun illness’ doesn’t reach India.” And emphasized the need to refrain from following the west, blindly. He further expressed his concern over the “politics of this pronouns illness” and perpetuating it in the corporate culture as promoted by the MNCs.
In a world that preaches inclusivity and diversity, stigmatizing the gender spectrum, an idea born from the Western culture, can make one a subject of online hate instantly. Something similar happened with the Ola CEO, as his post went viral igniting a ‘pronoun’ debate ahead of upcoming Pride month in June.
Meanwhile, Ola has launched its own AI chatbot Krutrim on Saturday, May 4th.
Users’ Reaction
The post did not polarize LinkedIn users, as most were critical of Bhavish for making such a comment especially when his own company Ola is a concept taken from the West. A user called him “tone deaf”, for his insensitivity considering the upcoming Pride month in June. But the X users are quite divided over the issue of “pronouns illness.”
Most of us in India have no clue about politics of this pronouns illness. People do it because it’s become expected in our corporate culture, especially MNCs
Better to send this illness back where it came from. Our culture has always had respect for all. No need for new pronouns pic.twitter.com/lo3eLHDGpH
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) May 5, 2024
While a user criticized him for his “lack of understanding of Basic English Grammar”, another user – adding rationality to empathy – pointed out the “poor understanding of technology. An AI model can’t deduce a person’s gender just by looking at their name as naming conventions vary based on cultures. So it’s safer for them to use the singular “they” than risk misgendering someone,” the user said.
Some users appreciated the “voice of dissent” amidst the widespread “woke ideology promoted by corporates,” adding the lack of reason for Indian MNCs to integrate such ‘international best practices.’ A few members of the Pride community were offended as well, using slurs for the CEO’s remark.
Also read: Met Gala 2024: Where can you watch the event in India?
A preceding Chatbot centric incident
This is not the first time that AI tools has been facing backlash as a couple of months ago, Google’s AI chatbot Gemini faced a similar backlash for generating racially biased AI images in response to user prompts. The tech giant was heavily criticized on social media for developing a ‘woke’ AI chatbot. It generated predominantly non-white images for prompts such as Founding Father, alluding to the non-white American natives– the Indians. Users were concerned about the chatbot’s ability to reinforce the existing stereotypes, hindering the world’s progress towards inclusivity and diversity.
Later, Google apologized for its AI and highlighted the “limitations in the training data used to develop Gemini.” It acknowledged the inaccuracies of the results generated and said, “ we’re working to improve these kinds of depictions immediately,” in a post on X.
