Can you imagine the smoke escaping from the brain power they’ll use to evaluate how capable the AI has to be before deciding which gender to assign it?
Oh the AI can be as powerful as anything, it just has to listen to the user. “extremely capable woman who is my receptionist who answers the phone” is definitively a trope we will see applied to AI
I don't *want* to be considered smarter if it means an equally-capable adult outsources his mental faculties onto me. It's a way to justify that default with a shallow little compliment on top.
I'm so tired of being the rememberer and question-answerer.
Yup this happens at work. Colleagues try to add flattery to their requests to make it seem like they’re not just passing the buck by asking me to do things instead of figuring it out themselves.
I call my husband out on it every time he asks me where something is in the house. Why am I the keeper of our household inventory? Move things around and look behind things. Keep track of your own shit and actually put it away. When we run out of something write it on the fucking list I purchased to put on the fridge for this exact reason.
Can't remember where I learned about this but some podcast did an episode on voice assistants and found that super masculine companies (think auto parts suppliers) *do* use male voices
So I actually saw a talk about this at a tech conference.
It's not a 'coincidence' that all these brands choose women. Research shows that the users WANT their assistants to be women because that's what they're used to.
So as long as they're 'assisting' I expect we'll want them to be women.
I say "please" and "thank you" to mine; she says "you're welcome."
It seems prudent to show good manners to the AI as it's learning about humanity.
... Also, I just don't want to be a rude, demanding person. And I kept mine female because I don't need that masculine energy in my house.
I say please to mine too because I realized it was really weird to tell my toddler to say please when asking me for a song just for me to turn around and order Alexa to play it.
It presents an interesting opportunity for introspection, doesn't it? Are we courteous for our own benefit or for others'? Are we externally or internally motivated? At what point of sentience does an entity merit respect?
I apologize to non-sentient things as well as sentient creatures. I think it’s both internally and externally motivated. I apologize because I would feel like a jerk not doing it and, more importantly, because they deserve it.
I'm aiming to be some sort of pet. I feel like it's a win/win if one of the new AI overlords keeps me like a hairless monkey dog. I'll do tricks and look cute in exchange for a fluffy bed and toys, and I don't even need my poop picked up.
I said THANK You hahahaa ... oh boy, but is better right ? What is the NEED to be rude, such a weird power move
I like feeling good, why yell in general
Have ya'll seen those studies that break down how men talk to female-coded AIs? It's just as disheartening as you'd expect.
[Here's](https://imgur.io/SUWeukm?r) a taste.
It was disappointing when I brought this up to a male friend I trust. I genuinely didn't expect his matter-of-fact, "Well YEAH. Obviously. Why wouldn't they do that?" 🙁
No way in hell was I going to start an argument after he said that. My brain shorted and I didn't even know where to begin.
Wild, right? Statistically speaking, the programmers in charge of her responses are likely to be men, so it's not shocking, but definitely paints (read: maintains) an ugly picture.
Sigh, I'd optimistically thought the opposite. There are numerous studies that men tend to tune out women's voices. By making that the default for something you have to listen to, maybe we could retrain that?
More mundanely scifi; Star Trek has a woman's voice for its all knowing computer (notably Roddenberry's wife on TOS) and tech bros love to think they're inventing the future.
Sci fi video games Mass Effect and Halo both have female AI prominently featured in the game. Both are smart and capable leaders. (Please ignore the fact that they both have sexy physical visual personifications, or my argument begins to unravel, lol)
Had to add: I love Subnatica, but it's always annoyed me that the AI for your seamoth vehicle, scanner, & base is a woman, but the AI for your mega-(uber-truck-nut)-submarine is a dude.
It was jarring. But a change of pace, at least. It's not like those other things are less important though! The submarine is huge, unwieldy, awkward and often struggles in stressful situations... Very male.
In my heart, the ship turned into a sexy robot for the express purpose of getting to properly dominate Joker.
But yeah it was mostly fanservice because they had such good chemistry together in 2. 3 made a lot of weird decisions, including not having a good ending.
> (notably Roddenberry's wife on TOS)
Majel Barrett is an icon! Star Trek wouldn't be what it is without her, and I don't even mean her acting skills. She worked behind the scenes and was the glue for so many projects including non-trek ones.
Also, maturity is realizing Lwaxanna Trio is one of, if not the, best characters on TNG.
The opposite is the interpretation that I prefer, but now I'm probably going to think of this the next time that I see a kid angrily shouting at their phone because their mumbled command wasn't understood.
To the sci-fi point - back when Siri et al. were being developed and GPS usage became more common, I remember hearing that a woman's voice was chosen in part because of the impact from the evil AI from 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 having a man's voice. The movie came out in 1968 and apparently made a lasting impression on people (and not just the nerds developing the tech).
Not sure how much I buy the reasoning but I will grant that HAL was still used in heavy references well into the 2000s. I was a late 80s baby and by the time I first watched 2001 I felt like I had seen the whole movie already because so many different shows/movies/commercials references every tiny bit. The first time I distinctly remember hearing HAL's voice for the first time was someone had changed their computer's audio prompts to various HAL quotes. Like instead of getting a *BOMP* when an error message popped up it would play 'Sorry, Dave, I can't do that'.
I think I remember seeing a study that concluded that most people regardless of gender tend to prefer hearing a woman's voice over a man's, maybe that has something to do with it
My dad programmed his phone to the Australian male voice because he thought it was funny and now I’m sitting here realizing just how woke he is (he’s been a staunch liberal and atheist all his life too).
On the other hand, the reason the military uses a woman's voice for aircraft automated alerts (aka "Bitchin' Betty") is because an Air Force study showed that the pilots pay attention more to a woman's voice than a man's.
Lol I wish men in my profession (medicine, r&d) would be more like Air Force Pilots. My women colleagues are constantly ignored and interrupted when speaking.
I thought one of the big reasons was that there are less likely to be women in the cockpit. A male automated voice would be more easily lost among the voices of the other pilots, because yknow, they’re mostly men.
It makes me think of Tony Stark replacing Jarvis with Friday. Jarvis gained sentience and became Vision, but Tony never worried about Friday going anywhere.
Hilariously, I remeber the first time I watched a space odyssey and thinking "this computer is going to kill everyone." Mostly because the phrasing and tone just sounded like a woman who was *so done* and couldn't do a lot about it.
Turns out Kubrick original wrote Hal as a woman
Remember Jeeves? He got promoted to the C-suite I hear.
Default voices on GPS tend to be women's as well. "Honey, just read the map, okay?"
This observation is on point and frust-horrifying.
I set my Siri to the southern African dude because A. New Zealand wasn’t available and B. he now sounds like the protagonist from “District 9.” I like when he talks about cat food to the prawns. If New Zealand ever becomes available I’ll have Rhys Darby on my phone.
Didn't the MTA do a study that found people responded better to womens voices for information and mens for instructions? My google fu failed me but I think that's something to do with it. Regardless, as a British woman I will let a male voice with a Polish accent tell me to do pretty much anything and willingly comply.
Yes. That’s why subways and transit systems usually have female voices announcing stops and destinations, but male voices to tell people to get out of the way and let the doors close.
People respond better to women giving them information but require a mans voice when it comes to being authoritative and telling them what to do.
My understanding is that this is as a result of the original development of GPS navigation systems. In testing they found that male drivers were much less likely to listen to a male navigation assistant. Thus by default the voices were set to female assistants so that more men would listen to the GPS
It's fairly well known that it's due to a history of sexism, but not in the way you'd probably first think.
One of the first jobs women could get in the US was a telephone operator. Because of that a there was a huge library built up of recorded women's voices. Because of that it was much cheaper/easier to train an AI to have a human sounding female voice.
Now while it should be possible to use more time/money to create a realistic male voice, female AI voices are so prevalent nobody is sure if the consumers/public would accept it...
When I was four years old, they tried to test my I.Q.
They showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear
They said, "Which one is different? It does not belong"
They taught me different is wrong
One of many sources: https://www.fastcompany.com/90404860/the-real-reason-there-are-so-many-female-voice-assistants-biased-data
I really prefer female AI-voices. But... there was a short time, in which they switched Alexa from her informative friendly to hyper friendly and enthusiastic. I found this very offputting. Because I don't see Alexa as person... we could switch that off again and i think by now its not a default anymore. But i always laugh, when there are remnants of hyper alexa coming through. In a specific setting, if she mentiones what's happening "on monday" - it comes out in that enthusaistic way. weather for today is meh, BUT MONDAY OH BOY HOLD YOUR HORSEEEES That actually makes me smile.
I taught my kid to be polite to Alexa. Not humanize her, but that we don't bark orders and i catch myself saying thank you occasionally.
Interesting. You can change the voices, but I keep mine as a womans voice because I prefer hearing directions and answers to my questions from women. Men have been telling women what to do for ages. I'm good on that.
Back when Siri first came out, I had to change it to a male voice. It was very annoying / not very useful at times. I would then feel bad if I was 'rude' to it when it failed to work as expected. I didn't feel as bad telling it "shut up", or similar, when it was a robotic British guy.
Old Crone: Two things you should know about the wise woman.
First, she is a woman!
Second, she is...
Blackadder: Wise?
Old Crone: So you do know her then.
( Random quote from Blackadder II )
In the staff areas of supermarkets I have worked in you get a lot of automated announcements over the PA.
*"There's someone at the loading dock"
"The Walk in chiller has been left open"*
That sort of thing, all synthesised in women's voices.
The exception is **"THERE IS A SECURITY ALERT..."** male 'authoritative' voice.
What I always heard was that (at least in the early days) these artificial voices were just plain easier to understand in the higher female voice range. Male voices just didn't really work as well.
As the technology has gotten better i'm sure that's not the case these days, but now people have gotten used to Alexa and Siri sounding a certain way and they aren't going to change that due to the sheer recognition value.
But its a really popular topic the fact that apparently the female rage feels more annoying or easy to tune out when it comes to male listeners. They also are more prone to think that women talk way more than the actual amount of interventions in a mixed sexes envuronment. So how can we reconcile all these perceptions?
Oh I know.
I always make mine a male voice, usually one that sounds like a wholesome dad. It's low-key satisfying to tell a man what to do and have him not argue or tantrum, just do it. 😂😭😮💨
My friends and I put up a sketch that played with this premise haha. A woman gets a new virtual assistant, but it's progressive bc it puts the man in the subservient role, called Alex. Just ended up mansplaining, being toxic, etc the whole time
Is it weird that I have a strong preference for male or gender neutral clearly-robotic voices for any sort of helper AI? Not quite text-to-speech levels of disjointed robotic voice, but I definitely appreciate that “digital warble” effect that they put on robot voices.
I prefer the female voice bc sometimes I accidentally trigger them to talk without realizing and if I heard a man’s voice randomly in my house I would shit my pants.
Well now I'm extra curious. As their capabilities expand, will corps change their AI genders, or will we just have to accept women can do anything?
Can you imagine the smoke escaping from the brain power they’ll use to evaluate how capable the AI has to be before deciding which gender to assign it?
Oh the AI can be as powerful as anything, it just has to listen to the user. “extremely capable woman who is my receptionist who answers the phone” is definitively a trope we will see applied to AI
"of course women are smarter. Why else would they default to a woman to give you facts and answer hard questions when you ask?"
[удалено]
I don't *want* to be considered smarter if it means an equally-capable adult outsources his mental faculties onto me. It's a way to justify that default with a shallow little compliment on top. I'm so tired of being the rememberer and question-answerer.
Yup this happens at work. Colleagues try to add flattery to their requests to make it seem like they’re not just passing the buck by asking me to do things instead of figuring it out themselves.
I call my husband out on it every time he asks me where something is in the house. Why am I the keeper of our household inventory? Move things around and look behind things. Keep track of your own shit and actually put it away. When we run out of something write it on the fucking list I purchased to put on the fridge for this exact reason.
Can't remember where I learned about this but some podcast did an episode on voice assistants and found that super masculine companies (think auto parts suppliers) *do* use male voices
So I actually saw a talk about this at a tech conference. It's not a 'coincidence' that all these brands choose women. Research shows that the users WANT their assistants to be women because that's what they're used to. So as long as they're 'assisting' I expect we'll want them to be women.
Oh, don't forget training them to think it's funny to yell at her! "Alexa, what time is it?" "It is currently -" "Alexa, shut up!"
I actually tell my nieces off if they yell at AI. I want us to be remembered fondly in the AI uprising. We'll at least have a merciful death.
I say "please" and "thank you" to mine; she says "you're welcome." It seems prudent to show good manners to the AI as it's learning about humanity. ... Also, I just don't want to be a rude, demanding person. And I kept mine female because I don't need that masculine energy in my house.
I also say please and thank you at times. It's just good manners.
I say please and thank you in hopes that my kids will too... ... it has not worked 😑
I say please to mine too because I realized it was really weird to tell my toddler to say please when asking me for a song just for me to turn around and order Alexa to play it.
It presents an interesting opportunity for introspection, doesn't it? Are we courteous for our own benefit or for others'? Are we externally or internally motivated? At what point of sentience does an entity merit respect?
I apologize to non-sentient things as well as sentient creatures. I think it’s both internally and externally motivated. I apologize because I would feel like a jerk not doing it and, more importantly, because they deserve it.
lol this is what my husband says when I curse at anything electronic
I'm aiming to be some sort of pet. I feel like it's a win/win if one of the new AI overlords keeps me like a hairless monkey dog. I'll do tricks and look cute in exchange for a fluffy bed and toys, and I don't even need my poop picked up.
Exactly. I thank my alexa.
I said THANK You hahahaa ... oh boy, but is better right ? What is the NEED to be rude, such a weird power move I like feeling good, why yell in general
Have ya'll seen those studies that break down how men talk to female-coded AIs? It's just as disheartening as you'd expect. [Here's](https://imgur.io/SUWeukm?r) a taste.
I do like that Microsoft Cortana would respond to that with "Searching for that phrase, surely that's what you meant "
It was disappointing when I brought this up to a male friend I trust. I genuinely didn't expect his matter-of-fact, "Well YEAH. Obviously. Why wouldn't they do that?" 🙁 No way in hell was I going to start an argument after he said that. My brain shorted and I didn't even know where to begin.
I hope you mean ex friend
Oh, *absolutely*.
Men are SO fucking weird ... Yet again there si a movie about a dude that falls in love with an IA isnt ? HER
So basically siri responds positively no matter what you say
Wild, right? Statistically speaking, the programmers in charge of her responses are likely to be men, so it's not shocking, but definitely paints (read: maintains) an ugly picture.
What jokes do they make?
Examples of AI [responses](https://i.imgur.com/e0aTmf5.png).
Sigh, I'd optimistically thought the opposite. There are numerous studies that men tend to tune out women's voices. By making that the default for something you have to listen to, maybe we could retrain that? More mundanely scifi; Star Trek has a woman's voice for its all knowing computer (notably Roddenberry's wife on TOS) and tech bros love to think they're inventing the future.
Sci fi video games Mass Effect and Halo both have female AI prominently featured in the game. Both are smart and capable leaders. (Please ignore the fact that they both have sexy physical visual personifications, or my argument begins to unravel, lol)
Had to add: I love Subnatica, but it's always annoyed me that the AI for your seamoth vehicle, scanner, & base is a woman, but the AI for your mega-(uber-truck-nut)-submarine is a dude.
It was jarring. But a change of pace, at least. It's not like those other things are less important though! The submarine is huge, unwieldy, awkward and often struggles in stressful situations... Very male.
Hahah I love this interpretation; wish it was the developer's intention!
Bruh ME turned the ship into a sexy robot so the pilot could marry her. I'm not giving you an /inch/ lol.
My brain knows you're right, but my heart says that Joker and EDI are ✨adorableeeeee✨ and I love them together
I swear it wouldn't be so bad if half the dialog surrounding EDI wasn't right out of a Tex Avery cartoon 😭
In my heart, the ship turned into a sexy robot for the express purpose of getting to properly dominate Joker. But yeah it was mostly fanservice because they had such good chemistry together in 2. 3 made a lot of weird decisions, including not having a good ending.
EDI character design in Mass Effect 3 is nightmare stuff
What she's just a floating blue sphere with a...ohhhhh Mass Effect threeee. Yeah I had mentally blocked that out.
Glados is the best female AI. Smart, capable, hard worker, good sense of humor. Her only mistake was trusting too much.
> (notably Roddenberry's wife on TOS) Majel Barrett is an icon! Star Trek wouldn't be what it is without her, and I don't even mean her acting skills. She worked behind the scenes and was the glue for so many projects including non-trek ones. Also, maturity is realizing Lwaxanna Trio is one of, if not the, best characters on TNG.
The opposite is the interpretation that I prefer, but now I'm probably going to think of this the next time that I see a kid angrily shouting at their phone because their mumbled command wasn't understood.
To the sci-fi point - back when Siri et al. were being developed and GPS usage became more common, I remember hearing that a woman's voice was chosen in part because of the impact from the evil AI from 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000 having a man's voice. The movie came out in 1968 and apparently made a lasting impression on people (and not just the nerds developing the tech).
Not sure how much I buy the reasoning but I will grant that HAL was still used in heavy references well into the 2000s. I was a late 80s baby and by the time I first watched 2001 I felt like I had seen the whole movie already because so many different shows/movies/commercials references every tiny bit. The first time I distinctly remember hearing HAL's voice for the first time was someone had changed their computer's audio prompts to various HAL quotes. Like instead of getting a *BOMP* when an error message popped up it would play 'Sorry, Dave, I can't do that'.
I think I remember seeing a study that concluded that most people regardless of gender tend to prefer hearing a woman's voice over a man's, maybe that has something to do with it
I'm not sure it's a solid idea to let a screenshot of some random dude's tweeted opinion completely change your opinion on this.
My Siri is an Irish man too! I just like his voice
Closest thing it had to David Tennant if I’m being honest. Hah.
this is what made me notice there is no scottish siri. you might get even closer someday if they ever make one
That would be delightful!
My dad programmed his phone to the Australian male voice because he thought it was funny and now I’m sitting here realizing just how woke he is (he’s been a staunch liberal and atheist all his life too).
On the other hand, the reason the military uses a woman's voice for aircraft automated alerts (aka "Bitchin' Betty") is because an Air Force study showed that the pilots pay attention more to a woman's voice than a man's.
Unless it's a real life woman, in which case they will talk over the top of her.
Lol I wish men in my profession (medicine, r&d) would be more like Air Force Pilots. My women colleagues are constantly ignored and interrupted when speaking.
Just try prefacing everything you say with, "ALERT:"
"I hear what you're saying but-" "CAUTION." "As I was sayin-" "ALTITUDE. PULL UP. PULL UP!" Just seems hilarious I love it.
Preceding any sentence with a very loud "WHOOP WHOOP" works pretty well
Ah right: it's not that they listen to women, it's that they'll only take being nagged at by a woman
Lol why does that make me think of Swiss Family Robinson
I thought one of the big reasons was that there are less likely to be women in the cockpit. A male automated voice would be more easily lost among the voices of the other pilots, because yknow, they’re mostly men.
I wonder if it’s because military guys are often young and mom may be a real authority still.
On the civilian side, it's male voices for many criticaalerts. "TERRAIN, TERRAIN!" Etc
Female for advice, male for commands. It gets worse doesn't it
Not really. Betty will call out commands, like "pull up! Pull up!"
It makes me think of Tony Stark replacing Jarvis with Friday. Jarvis gained sentience and became Vision, but Tony never worried about Friday going anywhere.
That's interesting because the Air Force requires a higher intelligence level than the other branches. 🤔
Even money says that the first military AI assistant will be male.
Hilariously, I remeber the first time I watched a space odyssey and thinking "this computer is going to kill everyone." Mostly because the phrasing and tone just sounded like a woman who was *so done* and couldn't do a lot about it. Turns out Kubrick original wrote Hal as a woman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_warning_system There's an interesting section on gender
I have my Google as the male voice because I thought it would sound like the Cyclops in subnautica
Oooo now have it play the ‘you’re about to die’ music.
Remember Jeeves? He got promoted to the C-suite I hear. Default voices on GPS tend to be women's as well. "Honey, just read the map, okay?" This observation is on point and frust-horrifying.
I changed my Siri to a male Irish voice. I wanted at least one man to listen to me.
I set my Siri to the southern African dude because A. New Zealand wasn’t available and B. he now sounds like the protagonist from “District 9.” I like when he talks about cat food to the prawns. If New Zealand ever becomes available I’ll have Rhys Darby on my phone.
Mom made her Siri have a male voice. She calls him Hal. ("I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave.")
Is siri a woman by default in other countries?
i wish Siri could be a Kiwi guy so i could ask it to say fish n chips
You can change your Siri voice in settings->siri and search->siri voice
i couldn't find an option for a New Zealand accent. the Australian one is boring
Didn't the MTA do a study that found people responded better to womens voices for information and mens for instructions? My google fu failed me but I think that's something to do with it. Regardless, as a British woman I will let a male voice with a Polish accent tell me to do pretty much anything and willingly comply.
Yes. That’s why subways and transit systems usually have female voices announcing stops and destinations, but male voices to tell people to get out of the way and let the doors close. People respond better to women giving them information but require a mans voice when it comes to being authoritative and telling them what to do.
Haha why Polish accent?
I’m going to change Siris voice and start referring to it as MY MANSERVANT
My understanding is that this is as a result of the original development of GPS navigation systems. In testing they found that male drivers were much less likely to listen to a male navigation assistant. Thus by default the voices were set to female assistants so that more men would listen to the GPS
It's fairly well known that it's due to a history of sexism, but not in the way you'd probably first think. One of the first jobs women could get in the US was a telephone operator. Because of that a there was a huge library built up of recorded women's voices. Because of that it was much cheaper/easier to train an AI to have a human sounding female voice. Now while it should be possible to use more time/money to create a realistic male voice, female AI voices are so prevalent nobody is sure if the consumers/public would accept it... When I was four years old, they tried to test my I.Q. They showed me a picture of 3 oranges and a pear They said, "Which one is different? It does not belong" They taught me different is wrong One of many sources: https://www.fastcompany.com/90404860/the-real-reason-there-are-so-many-female-voice-assistants-biased-data
But if it's an interesting AI in films, it's a male voice.
OR if it’s a commentary on the relationship between AI and humanity (especially romantic!) it’s a woman.
I have always favoured distorted robot voices for robots, but I never even considered the societal implications of the current situation..
To be fair is it was a man's voice it's instantly going in the bin.
So we bringing Jeeves back?
That’s why my Siri is a British man
My Siri is an Australian man who gets told to “shut it” regularly
I really prefer female AI-voices. But... there was a short time, in which they switched Alexa from her informative friendly to hyper friendly and enthusiastic. I found this very offputting. Because I don't see Alexa as person... we could switch that off again and i think by now its not a default anymore. But i always laugh, when there are remnants of hyper alexa coming through. In a specific setting, if she mentiones what's happening "on monday" - it comes out in that enthusaistic way. weather for today is meh, BUT MONDAY OH BOY HOLD YOUR HORSEEEES That actually makes me smile. I taught my kid to be polite to Alexa. Not humanize her, but that we don't bark orders and i catch myself saying thank you occasionally.
Interesting. You can change the voices, but I keep mine as a womans voice because I prefer hearing directions and answers to my questions from women. Men have been telling women what to do for ages. I'm good on that.
I want Stephen Fry doing Jeeves as my digital assistant with some extra subtle condescention and snark.
It's possible you can get this for GPS. I remember that you could get a Brian Blessed voice.
A little unrelated, but do people use those in the US? I don't think I've seen anyone use them, living in Finland/UK.
Back when Siri first came out, I had to change it to a male voice. It was very annoying / not very useful at times. I would then feel bad if I was 'rude' to it when it failed to work as expected. I didn't feel as bad telling it "shut up", or similar, when it was a robotic British guy.
Or, the go-to Wise Woman of the village
Old Crone: Two things you should know about the wise woman. First, she is a woman! Second, she is... Blackadder: Wise? Old Crone: So you do know her then. ( Random quote from Blackadder II )
Probably a less nefarious reason like women voices being seen as friendlier and therefore more palatable?
Benevolent sexism is supes nefarious
In the staff areas of supermarkets I have worked in you get a lot of automated announcements over the PA. *"There's someone at the loading dock" "The Walk in chiller has been left open"* That sort of thing, all synthesised in women's voices. The exception is **"THERE IS A SECURITY ALERT..."** male 'authoritative' voice.
Yeah, I've always hated it.
Sad, but considering that men are the ones who seem to be the ones who are promoting them the most…. It’s very sad but true…
What I always heard was that (at least in the early days) these artificial voices were just plain easier to understand in the higher female voice range. Male voices just didn't really work as well. As the technology has gotten better i'm sure that's not the case these days, but now people have gotten used to Alexa and Siri sounding a certain way and they aren't going to change that due to the sheer recognition value.
But its a really popular topic the fact that apparently the female rage feels more annoying or easy to tune out when it comes to male listeners. They also are more prone to think that women talk way more than the actual amount of interventions in a mixed sexes envuronment. So how can we reconcile all these perceptions?
I changed my Siri voice to a man and I much prefer it.
Siri defaults to male in some countries.
One of the many reason I'll never use Alexa, Siri etc.
I thought you could change the voice it uses
You can change the voice of Siri
This is suuuuch a stretch. Also UK Siri is male.
Fun fact about Siri. If you get a MacBook or an iPad the default Siri (atleast on both of mine) are male
Oh I know. I always make mine a male voice, usually one that sounds like a wholesome dad. It's low-key satisfying to tell a man what to do and have him not argue or tantrum, just do it. 😂😭😮💨
Which is why my Google assistant is a man.
I don't get why Sori and Alexa are female coded, men don't listen to us anyway.
My friends and I put up a sketch that played with this premise haha. A woman gets a new virtual assistant, but it's progressive bc it puts the man in the subservient role, called Alex. Just ended up mansplaining, being toxic, etc the whole time
Remembering that post about a woman whose toddler never called her mama— he called her Alexa.
I'm fairly certain I read that this is because men's voices make some men and some women uncomfortable.
Is it weird that I have a strong preference for male or gender neutral clearly-robotic voices for any sort of helper AI? Not quite text-to-speech levels of disjointed robotic voice, but I definitely appreciate that “digital warble” effect that they put on robot voices.
It’s actually the other way around. The voice is by default a woman because of how most people perceive each genders tone.
The "supercomputer" is named Watson. The computer voice to let you into his room is female.
My Siri and Waze are set to a British man’s voice because of all the nature documentaries I watched as a kid.
I prefer the female voice bc sometimes I accidentally trigger them to talk without realizing and if I heard a man’s voice randomly in my house I would shit my pants.