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How former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sees AI assistants fitting into busy women's lives
Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer says her AI assistant Dazzle is for everyone, not only women
Key points
- Mayer said Dazzle is for everyone, not only women, and that busy women may need a nudge and examples to use it.
- Mayer said a New York Times profile published last week drew backlash over a Dazzle anecdote, but context was missing.
- Mayer said Dazzle described her identical twins accurately from photos and pulled up kindergarten projects from five years earlier.
Why it matters. The interview shows how an AI assistant's use of personal photos and its role in parenting and gender expectations have become a public debate, as Mayer says women may need more encouragement to use such tools.
In an NPR interview, former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer explained that her AI assistant Dazzle is for everyone, not only women. A New York Times profile published last week drew backlash over a Dazzle anecdote, though Mayer said context was missing. She said Dazzle accurately described her identical twins from photos, pulling up kindergarten projects from five years earlier.
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How former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer sees AI assistants fitting into busy women's lives
NPR's Juana Summers talks with former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer about AI assistants and lightening the load of emotional labor. NPR's Juana Summers talks with former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer about AI assistants and lightening the load of emotional labor. Transcript JUANA SUMMERS, HOST: Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer wants more women to use AI, so she created an AI assistant that centered on women's experiences to help lighten the mental load of parenting as a working mom. But she also touched off a heated debate about the role artificial intelligence should have in parenting and gender expectations. And we wanted to talk directly with the person who sparked this discussion. Marissa Mayer joins us now. Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. MARISSA MAYER: Thank you very much for having me. SUMMERS: OK, let's just start at the beginning here because last week, the New York Times ran the super buzzy profile of you. It opened with a story where you used your AI assistant Dazzle to come up with a list of three bullet points about your daughter. And that anecdote just sparked a ton of backlash. It was all over my social media feeds last week. Were you surprised by the reaction? MAYER: I was because I think there was some context that was missing, which is I shared that anecdote because it was from back when we were first building the product. I was testing the technology. And what happened w.