`While this all can sound like fun and games, matters can get out of hand. Virtual assistants have been subject to sexual harassment. Bots such as Apple’s Siri, Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google Assistant—all of which have women as the default voice—are “programed to literally flirt with abuse” instead of standing up to it, Quartz’s Leah Fessler found. Ilya Eckstein, chief executive of Robin Labs, whose virtual assistant Robin gives traffic advice and directions to drivers and truckers, said a good proportion of his customers’ interactions with the technology were “clearly s*xually explicit.”`
