5 ms·
The article literally says, verbatim "...Date Your Digital Assistant." However, the only mention of a "boyfriend' is referring to Siri's deflection of such ques
by tabeth 9y ago
The article literally says, verbatim "...Date Your Digital Assistant." However, the only mention of a "boyfriend' is referring to Siri's deflection of such questions in a stereotypically Siri-esque manner. Even the current (now former) title, "Meet the $2,700 A.I. Girlfriend" suggests that A.I's are generally women.
- Cortana
- Alexa
- Siri
- Google Assistant
With the majority of the major players giving their intelligent assistants names that are most likely going to be associated with a woman, is it any surprise?
The real question is -- why are A.I. assistants conflated with women? I think you know the answer. In any case, this trend in "digital assistants" being named after women is no surprise, but disturbing nonetheless.
- SBCRec 9y ago"The real question is -- why are A.I. assistants conflated with women? I think you know the answer." Whats the answer? The creators prefer a woman's voice? Sexism? Variance?
- fratlas 9y agoSexism: Siri's secretary-like, menial role is still marketed with a woman's voice.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pvinis 9y agoAnother, better reason, at least for me, is that when you have to talk to an assistant/receptionist/phone-whatever, it's always more pleasant to hear a woman's voice.
- wahnfrieden 9y agoUnpack another layer or two - why do you interpret that to be more pleasant. It may be more socialized than you think at first glance. That's the problem with "for me"isms: you're just expressing climatized bias.
- nilkn 9y agoAs a straight male, my answer is dead simple: female voices are attractive, pleasant, and comforting to me in large part because I experience romantic attraction exclusively towards women. I can't speak for non-heterosexual men or for women on this question though.
- dTal 9y agoHow confident are you of this introspection? Might it not rather be (for example) that female voices are evocative of motherhood? Speaking for myself, while I would prefer a high-pitched voice for a digital assistant (male or female - Data sounds friendlier than HAL, for instance), I would prefer it not to be sexualised. Can't say for sure until I've tried it, but I think it would be disturbing if a computer attempted to flirt with me.
- fratlas 9y agoI actually would agree with that, I'm just answering why it might be construed as a problem. Women's voices are also clearer in high noise environments.
- jessaustin 9y agoWomen's voices are often harder to understand for those who have lost sensitivity to high octaves. That is a typical pattern of hearing loss for older people, both women and men. Of course the ridiculous fashion in which some people choose to speak exacerbates this, but it would be a mistake to assume that such people aren't hired to answer phones.
- anonemouse145 9y agoIt's biology. A female/mother is more comforting, for blatantly obvious reasons that seem silly to have to explain to people. But no, you're right it's more plausible that it's... (dramatic music plays) the global patriarchal conspiracy (Doctor Evil gesture).
- sago 9y agoAn observation, not a disagreement: While P.A.s are stereotypically female in culture (e.g. Most often in films, novels, TV shows). 'High-value' assistants in several cultural contexts are usually portrayed as male: maitre d's, butlers, concierges.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- telesilla 9y agoCultural expectations in the real world. Wired:why are voice interfaces female https://www.wired.com/2015/10/why-siri-cortana-voice-interfaces-sound-female-sexism/ https://www.wired.com/2015/10/why-siri-cortana-voice-interfa...
- SBCRec 9y agoThanks for the link! I probably should have just googled it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- tjalfi 9y agoHere are the two studies that are quoted by most of the articles on this topic. The first is Does social desirability bias favor humans? Explicit–implicit evaluations of synthesized speech support a new HCI model of impression management[0]. This study found that both men and women interpret female voices as warmer. The second is Are Computers Gender-Neutral? Gender Stereotypic Responses to Computers[1]. This study found that male voices are preferred when discussing computers and female voices are preferred when discussing relationships. [0] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.669.3781&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.669... [1] http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.536.7047&rep=rep1&type=pdf http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.536...
- scottlocklin 9y agoThe warning voice in the B-58 hustler was made female because studies found fighter pilots pay more attention to female voices under stressful situations. There is an obvious "lol" reason for this, but the reality might just be the human ear can hear female pitched voices better when there are distracting noises. Deep voices are often difficult to hear.
- kens 9y agoA related issue is the voice used in aircraft warning systems. Different aircraft use a male voice (Boeing, Airbus) or female voice (McDonnell Douglas). There's various contradictory research on whether a male or female voice is better. For a long discussion, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitching_Betty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitching_Betty
- sillysaurus3 9y agoOut of the five places I've worked, four had female assistants. I've interviewed at many more places with female secretaries. Rather than "Why are assistants conflated with women?" a more interesting question is "Why do assistants tend to be women?" (If my experience is average.) I don't really know the answer, but I hope it's not a controversial question, since I'm genuinely curious about the forces involved.
- goseeastarwar 9y agoYou're concerned about controversy, because the origin is clearly sexist. Men running businesses wanted attractive women welcoming visitors (ie. other men) and helping them with tasks around the office. The continuing problem is this hasn't changed much at all in the last half century. For example, you will not find one unattractive receptionist at any VC office on Sand Hill Rd.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago> I understand that beauty is subjective It's not, really: displays of health, wealth, leisure are pretty much common. Youth and fertility for women. Status and wealth for men. Body symmetry. My layperson's understanding is that some of the specifics can be contextual to a particular time and culture, but the principles are universal, and so are a good number of the specifics.
- goseeastarwar 9y agoI edited that line out, because it was superfluous. It's clear why these individuals were hired, in addition to being great at their job.
- peteretep 9y ago> Men running businesses wanted attractive > women Maybe, but it seems equally plausible to me that young (and old) women represented a large labour pool of sufficiently educated and equally intelligent workers who expected not to pursue a career (or had not been pursuing a career), were cut off from manual work, and in many cases wouldn't be averse to an environment where they might meet a young man with an office job. Secretarial and clerkship work was a primary male profession until mid 1900s.
- Eliezer 9y agoIt seems to me that a majority of AIs across a wide variety of fiction are female. Including quite powerful ones.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoLeave Shodan and Glados alone!
- peteretep 9y agoI have a vague memory that some UK regional accents are considered to be more trustworthy, and are used in call-centers. I wonder if there's are related effects for female voices.
- devoply 9y agoFor the voice my personal experience is that it sounded the best to me. I used Ivona's, now AWS Poly, Amy UK voice. It sounds great as close to a real person as I could get at the time.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- helthanatos 9y agoA good reason for digital assistants being women is that a lot of people find feminine voices soothing. I personally find male voices to be more relaxing.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Girlang 9y agoYou can change Siri to be a man's voice in the U.S., as I did.
- c22 9y agoMy understanding is that Siri was intentionally chosen to be a gender agnostic name.
- panzer_wyrm 9y agoBecause calling your assistant jeeves means you are the wooster drone. On a serious note - a female voice is extremely pleasing. Male voice puts you instantly into play social status games mode.
- peteretep 9y ago> Male voice puts you instantly into > play social status games mode I suspect that's just one facet of adult males representing a lot more danger than adult females.
- sandworm101 9y agoThere is some science behind this. Studies have shown that people, both men and women, react differently to a female voice. Sometimes that reaction can make a real difference. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yx7-yvXf6f8
- shpx 9y agoThis got me thinking about what a genderless voice would sound like. I can see some parallels between that question and print vs hand writing[0]. Print is genderless, but not by design. A computer can produce more sounds more precisely than a human, could we invent a way of converting text to sound that could take advantage of that in some way? [0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8961315 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8961315 https://dabamirror.sci-hub.cc/ba3402de799822a492cbb9f42a2fe386/hayes1996.pdf https://dabamirror.sci-hub.cc/ba3402de799822a492cbb9f42a2fe3... 78% accuracy in sexing hand writing from a single word.
- marak830 9y agoI was writing voice assist for star citizen(3rd party), I made sure I had both male and female. It bugs me that a)you can't call these 'assistants' by different names and b) they are always female. Btw male here, but seriously, it's 2017, can we get a little customisability in this area?
- arjie 9y agoThe default UK Siri voice is male. Considering that no one is alleging that the UK is less sexist or less interested in voices being pleasant, this is a good sanity check for any explanation on the gender of voices.
- Mandatum 9y agoJ.A.R.V.I.S (re-imagined as AI for Iron Man movies) is the only one I can think of, and Alfred App for OSX in a similar role (no voice, but name of digital "assistant").
- RugnirViking 9y ago> J.A.R.V.I.S (re-imagined as AI for Iron Man movies) Apologies for the ignorance, but what was he in the comics?
- Mandatum 9y agoHe was an actual butler.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- antisthenes 9y agoWomen are by "default" considered more trustworthy and less dangerous than men. The perfect qualities for an assistant role. Unless you somehow think that's sexist, that's your real answer.
- dragonwriter 9y ago> The real question is -- why are A.I. assistants conflated with women? Because men and women both respond better to women. This is true of interactions with people, it's true of disembodied voices that they know are backed by computer programs, it's true of images on magazine covers, it's true, well, basically everywhere.