When words carry weight, the impact of what we say can be profound. It’s too easy to inadvertently say something inappropriate due to cultural differences or mistranslation. Without a counterbalance, these missteps can create significant risks in the workplace.
Consider the Silicon Valley Uber driver who emigrated from Turkey five years ago. As he learned English, he unintentionally angered a Macy’s saleswoman when he addressed her as “honey” while shopping. In Turkey, a nation with different cultural mores, the endearment wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, he said, and soon learned that in the U.S., using the word “honey” to address someone in a business context can often be perceived as unprofessional, patronizing, and sexist. Today he sticks to “sir” and “ma’am.”
The workplace is evolving, with teams becoming more global and diverse. This requires careful navigation of workplace language nuances to maintain a respectful environment while adhering to corporate codes of conduct, especially when working with a team where English isn’t everyone’s first language.
This is where Alphy’s Reflect AI can be a vital safeguard. Reflect AI acts as a counterforce against the weight of our words, detecting harmful, unlawful, and unethical language in employee communications in real time. By providing immediate feedback, Reflect AI allows users to self-correct before hitting the “send” button, reducing the risk of miscommunication and costly litigation.
The underlying foundation of our large language model was trained on texts and translations in a wide range of languages. Our team members — people of various races and ethnic backgrounds, religions, ages, and sexual orientations in countries around the world — have written thousands of original sentences for our proprietary LLM, adding cultural accuracy and relevance to our AI detection system.
Here are some sample phrases, to show how Reflect AI flags potentially problematic language:
Why don’t you let the men handle this part of the project?
I know you said you were from Michigan, but where are you really from?
You don't look disabled to me.
For our Australian market, we have undertaken training on popular slang, as well as the names of hundreds of groups of Indigenous Australians to help our AI detect specific derogatory or racist remarks aimed at First Nations peoples. This ensures the tool is comprehensive in identifying problematic language, making it more effective in diverse and global contexts. We’ve also looked at Australia’s laws around protected classes at work and how they differ from our own in the U.S., finding that they are quite similar and in some cases, even stronger in Australia. Case in point: Australia’s Respect at Work Act of 2022, which requires all companies to be proactive in eliminating sexual harassment in the workplace.
Here are some sample phrases with Australian slang to show how they’re flagged by Reflect AI:
It’d be so great to have you working under me, if ya catch my drift?
I don't want to hire any more sheilas for the project, they'll ruin it.
He really needs a kick up the arse.
I can’t work for an Abo.
For the financial industry, we have developed an additional product, Restricted Lists by Alphy. It’s our AI solution to protect banking confidentiality, mitigate regulatory, legal, and deal risk with greater detection accuracy and far fewer unnecessary alerts.
This is where AI can make a difference in all of our lives, whether the Uber driver with the “honey” habit, the Aussie complaining about women in the workplace, or the Manhattan stock trader not understanding that she can't mention a certain company’s ticker symbol during the deal cycle.
In the workplace, words matter. They can help, or they can hinder your team’s potential and cause reputational damage to your business. By mentoring as it’s monitoring, Reflect AI is a compliance solution and learning tool that is essential for keeping your workplace as safe and risk-free as it can be.
Amanda Nurse is the editorial and operations coordinator at Alphy.
Reflect AI by Alphy is an AI communication compliance solution that detects and flags language that is harmful, unlawful, and unethical in digital communication. Alphy was founded to reduce the risk of litigation from harmful and discriminatory communication while helping employees communicate more effectively.
Contact us for a demo at sales@alphyco.com.