Google Docs for ‘PC’ users

Google Docs has rolled out an “inclusive language” function to steer users away from what it deems to be politically incorrect words such as “landlord” and “mankind.”

Introduced this month, the popular online document editor’s “assistive writing” feature is meant to improve prose but also displays alerts when users type words or phrases considered noninclusive, such as “policeman,” “fireman” or “housewife.”

Users are warned that their chosen terms “may not be inclusive to all readers” and are offered more inclusive alternatives. For example, it might suggest “humankind” instead of “mankind,” or “police officer” instead of “policeman.”

Motherboard, Vice’s technews site, tested the AI-powered feature and found that a transcript of an interview with former KKK leader David Duke, in which he used the N-word and made other hateful remarks, raised no red flags.

But the feature suggested edits to Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, advising that “the fierce urgency of now” be changed to “the intense urgency of now.”

It also took issue with President John F. Kennedy’s use of the phrase “for all mankind” in his inaugural address and suggested swapping it with “for all humankind.”

A Google spokesperson said the feature was an “ongoing evolution.”