NPR’s Juana Summers speaks with former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer about AI assistants and how to ease the burden of emotional labor.
Transcription
JUANA VERANOS, PRESENTER:
Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants more women to use AI, so she created an AI assistant that focused on women’s experiences to help lighten the mental load of being a working mother. But it also sparked a heated debate about the role artificial intelligence should play in parenting and gender expectations. And we wanted to speak directly to the person who started this discussion. Marissa Mayer joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
MARISSA MAYER: Thank you very much for inviting me.
SUMMERS: OK, let’s start at the beginning because last week, the New York Times published your super animated profile. It started with a story where you used your AI assistant, Dazzle, to create a three-point list about your daughter. And that anecdote provoked many violent reactions. It was all over my social media last week. Were you surprised by the reaction?
MAYER: I did it because I think there was some context missing, and I shared that anecdote because it was from when we were building the product for the first time. I was testing the technology. And what happened was basically all my engineers were very excited. From our photos, we were able to know the name of your pet. From her photos, we could know, you know, her mother’s date of birth. And I was wondering what I could say.
And I got this assignment from school to prepare a slide for my twins’ birthday, and I put it up. And I have to say I didn’t have high hopes because most facial recognition can’t tell my twins apart. They are identical. And then, to my surprise, Dazzle came back and described them perfectly and also brought out examples of kindergarten projects they had done five years earlier where these traits were evident.
It’s just a fun anecdote, not necessarily how people use the product. There are many different ways to use Dazzle and we are delighted with the way people are doing it. But it’s really more about the power of what’s in our photos, and when you give it to an AI assistant, how it can help you.
SUMMERS: Why do you think women need their own personalized AI assistant or something that maybe works differently and more specifically for us?
MAYER: Well, first of all, Dazzle is not just for women. It’s for everyone. So, you know, it’s not necessarily designed for that experience. I think because busy women have a lot to do, this is a great thing, where you can delegate some of what you have to do, whether it’s shopping, fixing things around the house, booking things, scheduling.
SUMMERS: But as I think about this, I’m wondering, instead of an AI tool to help us outsource emotional labor, those long to-do lists that I think every woman in my life, including me, has, why not an AI tool to help men collaborate? The implication is that, you know, women need to work more. We’re not really talking about the fact that we carry this enormous emotional baggage.
MAYER: Yeah, and I think for the emotional part, I’ll say that’s one of the things where I think my example wasn’t perfect on the birthday slide…
VERANOS: Yes.
MAYER: …Because that’s something that… you know, you want a deep connection with your child, and I have it with mine.
SUMMERS: Sure.
MAYER: And I think what you want to do is take some of the things that are less personal, less emotional, and outsource them to AI. And like I said, it doesn’t have to be just women.
SUMMERS: No.
MAYER: I feel like right now, from what we’re seeing, women might need a little more push to use it and also ideas and examples on how to get the most out of it.
SUMMERS: I can’t help but think about the dynamic between emotional labor and emotional connection. You could argue that work is what gives value to our connections. Are you at all concerned that these types of tools could devalue the real relationships we have?
MAYER: Well, again, I – I wasn’t outsourcing my relationship with my daughter here.
SUMMERS: Sure.
MAYER: I was going to have to write the slide one way or another. What I would outsource is, you know, being able to add all the calendar dates for an upcoming trivia night at school or, you know, the closing of a dance studio.
VERANOS: Yes.
MAYER: So it’s less about the emotional part, which is where I think AI liberates us. What Dazzle is trying to do is give people the gift of time. I think with it you can decide how you want to use Dazzle and you can also decide, with the time you are given back, how to spend it. And I think that would be great. I know that as a father, I have used that time to spend more quality time with my children.
SUMMERS: We’ve been talking to former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Thank you very much for joining us.
MAYER: Thank you for inviting me.
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