Elon Musk mocks Microsoft Word’s woke ‘inclusivity checker’
Elon Musk blasted a Microsoft Word feature called “inclusivity checker,” complaining that it “scolded” him for typing the word “insane.”
The billionaire owner of X posted a screenshot of a Microsoft Word document that appeared to be discussing Tesla’s new Cybertruck, which boasted of the new electric vehicle’s “insane stability.”
The phrase was highlighted by Word’s software — which flags terms and phrases that are deemed politically incorrect and then recommends alternate phrasing — warning that “insane” is a word that “implies mental health bias.”
“Microsoft Word now scolds you if you use words that aren’t ‘inclusive’!” the world’s richest man wrote on his social media platform on Friday.
Musk also posted a screenshot showing an attempt to type “11,000lbs” — though it is unclear why that term would be deemed not inclusive.
“Consider a different perspective,” the Microsoft Word prompt reads. It then offers alternatives such as “11,000lbs (about 4989.51 kg)” and “11,000lbs (about twice the weight of an elephant).”
The Post has sought comment from Microsoft.
Other social media users posted screenshots of attempts to use terms that were flagged by the software’s “inclusivity checker.”
One user wrote in a Word document: “Hey there, could you man the booth this afternoon?”
The checker, which is only available to customers who subscribe to the Windows maker’s $7-a-month Microsoft 365 subscription plan, flagged the phrase “man the booth” and suggested instead “a gender-neutral term [that] would be more inclusive” such as “staff” or “take control of.”
Other phrases that are deemed to be politically incorrect by the “inclusivity checker” include “postman” — which the software suggests be rephrased as “postal worker” — and “master” — which could be altered to “expert.”
In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, in Minneapolis in the spring of 2020, GitHub, the Microsoft-owned open source software engineering site, banned the use of the phrases “master” and “slave” since they were considered racially insensitive.
Since 2020, updated versions of Microsoft Word have included a feature that allows users to prompt the software to flag “exclusionary” language that promotes age bias, gender bias, cultural slurs, sexual orientation bias and racial bias.
Microsoft Word users must manually turn on the feature for it to work.
Users can do so by opening a new Word document and then clicking on the “editor” button. In the settings section, they would then have to choose the “proofing” category.
Near the “writing style” option is a drag-down menu for “Grammar & Refinements.” The user would then need to hit the “settings” button.
That would reveal a drag-down menu in which users can click on boxes under the “Inclusiveness” category.
Once the “inclusivity checker” is activated, the software will flag terms that fall outside its “accepted” and “allowed” lists of terms.
If a user were to type in the word “mankind,” the software would flag the term and suggest alternatives such as “humankind” or “humanity.”
The user could simply ignore the prompt and keep the term in place.
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