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So, I get that most folks aren’t tuned in to this and I will sound unreasonable, but I’m utterly tired of robot-like things being given gender. Every time I rea

So, I get that most folks aren’t tuned in to this and I will sound unreasonable, but I’m utterly tired of robot-like things being given gender. Every time I read “he”, “him” when learning about a piece of software I gag a little. I know someone will tell me I am wrong. But I’m not asking or telling anyone to change. I just want to share what unnecessary gendering looks like to me. And for the record, all my robots are non-gendered (“Scout, Skittles, Rover”).

lucideer 8y ago
> I get that most folks aren’t tuned in to this and I will sound unreasonable > someone will tell me I am wrong I know "+1" style comments are generally dissuaded on HN, but just chiming in to say that not everyone thinks this sounds unreasonable. It's a topic well worth opening discussions on. > And for the record, all my robots are non-gendered (“Scout, Skittles, Rover”). All of my robots are named "Larry"[0] [0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/27727 https://bugs.gentoo.org/27727
TeMPOraL 8y ago
You can choose between "he", "she" and "it", at least in regular English, sans the XXI-century additions. "It" usually refers to things, so if you want to humanize your bot/robot - as many people tend to - you're stuck with picking a gender. At least in English you don't have nouns automatically selecting gender for you, like in other languages.
- nicoburns 8y ago
  > You can choose between "he", "she" and "it", at least in regular English, sans the XXI-century additions. Or "they". People seem to think that singluar they is some kind of modern invention, but most people also use it all the time without thinking when talking about people that they don't know the gender.
  - _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
    Not to mention it's used by Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
- wonks 8y ago
  Is it just me, or is humanizing these things so much itself kind of creepy? I prefer not to call Siri "she" for that reason alone.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    I go all-in on the weirdness and make my Siri call me "master" just for shits and giggles
nicoburns 8y ago
> I’m utterly tired of robot-like things being given gender. I would actually prefer it if humans weren't given a gender either. Obviously we should recognise that people have different physical characteristics, but the abstraction of genders with different societal roles doesn't seem like a very useful one in this day and age.
- gdffgdfhhh 8y ago
  You can actually pretty much do what you want, regardless of your gender. It is a myth that your "sex" or "gender" forces you into certain roles. Your physical attributes may influence your roles, to some extent (giving birth, lifting heavy stuff,...).
  - nicoburns 8y ago
    There are definitely segments of society that have different expectations for people they categorise as "men" and "women" though. I certainly come across "you're a man, can you help me open this jar" (even though I'm physically weaker than a lot of the women I live with), and plenty of people thinking that because I'm a man that I won't be caring/empathetic.
    - gdffgdfhhh 8y ago
      Nevertheless, you are not forced into certain roles. Except for some because of physical aspects, like being drafted into the military because you don't have a womb. People would have notions about other people without gender, too (like being caring or non-caring). You can be caring and empatetic as a man. More importantly, being a man doesn't make you non-caring.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I agree wholeheartedly! I make my robots non gendered as a kind of point that assigning gender to things that can’t or haven’t affirmed that is unhelpful. That includes baby humans. :)
joshstrange 8y ago
I too noticed the gender-ness of the description but I don't know if it matters. I bristled at it with the thought of "Why does it have to be a 'he'?" and then thought well if it was another "she" would I be thinking "Oh so only women can be 'assistants'?!". I get that non-gendered is probably the best but I wouldn't read too much into it. The author wrote this, it appears, for themselves and they can call it whatever they want as far as I'm concerned.
- phishfi 8y ago
  For my Google Assistant, I've made it a point to select a male voice, and I always refer to it as the Google Assistant or just Assistant. The choice in voice gender was so that my wife could keep the default female voice, and we would know it's responding under her account when she talks to a Home in our house vs defaulting to my account like it does for me or guests. Having said that, I've never heard a genderless voice (although there have been times when I'm on the phone and cannot make out the other person's sex from just their voice). I think this idea that everyone should stop considering gender as binary simply due to the apparently increase in gender dysphoria is a bit ridiculous. Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon").
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > I think this idea that everyone should stop considering gender as binary simply due to the apparently increase in gender dysphoria is a bit ridiculous. But gender isn't inherently binary, even if many but not all cultures have tended to ascribe gender from a binary pallette. > Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon"). They probably haven't aimed for genderlessness, and in fact has e probably avoided it, because real people have genders (whether or not aligned in the stereotypical way with external sex traits) and conforming to social expectations improves receptions (and, at least in America, there is significant research that, across genders of listeners, people on average respond more positively to feminine voices, which is why the default usually is for a feminine voice.)
lhinds 8y ago
Did you just assume this robots gender? /s
cabaalis 8y ago
Perhaps this is unreasonable as well, but maybe ongoing developments in society have caused you to focus a little too much of your attention on gender. Gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition, for which there are suggested plans of treatment--up to and including hormone therapy and reassignment. Just go with the treatment, and be done with it, and accept that people who have done so were trying to make themselves better. I don't know why society is making it such a hot-button political issue. (Actually I do know why... politicians need to find wedge issues to split and enthuse people, to get votes.)
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  I’m not motivated by politicians (I hardly ever listen to them or endorse them). I’m motivated by the suffering I see in our society experienced by gender nonconforming individuals who feel uncomfortable in a world that believes in the gender binary. It’s interesting that you mention treatment. I’m not sure if you know any gender nonconforming people, but “just go with the treatment and be done with it” doesn’t really reflect accurately the experience I’ve seen other people have. Hormones and surgery can treat the symptoms of dysphoria but the cause seems to be society and the expectation that all people fit in to a binary. (Please ask if you’d like me to elaborate on that.) So here I am proscribing a treatment for society: stop gendering things unnecessarily and stop supporting a hard gender binary.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    There are less gender nonconforming individuals than amputees. Let's tackle the big ticket items first.
    - rabidrat 8y ago
      51% of the population are women, who suffer from these gender roles. That's a super big-ticket group right there.
      - airstrike 8y ago
joppy 8y ago
The trend of the large assistants (Google Home, Alexa, Cortana) to all be female-voiced by default is pretty awful. Recently I tried to change the settings on an Alexa to try to get it to answer in a male voice, but I don't think it's possible.
- mkl 8y ago
  I think the explanation is more practical and less nefarious than you are implying: female voices are often easier to hear and understand, especially with background noise. Maybe it's different for other people, but that's certainly the case for me, in movies, lectures, radio, and synthesised voices.
darkpuma 8y ago
Amusingly Amazon could have simply dropped the trailing "a" and had a gender neutral name.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
microtherion 8y ago
Siri made some effort to be non-gendered, but I think most users still think of Siri as female.

lucideer 8y ago

> I get that most folks aren’t tuned in to this and I will sound unreasonable > someone will tell me I am wrong I know "+1" style comments are generally dissuaded on HN, but just chiming in to say that not everyone thinks this sounds unreasonable. It's a topic well worth opening discussions on. > And for the record, all my robots are non-gendered (“Scout, Skittles, Rover”). All of my robots are named "Larry"[0] [0] https://bugs.gentoo.org/27727 https://bugs.gentoo.org/27727

TeMPOraL 8y ago

You can choose between "he", "she" and "it", at least in regular English, sans the XXI-century additions. "It" usually refers to things, so if you want to humanize your bot/robot - as many people tend to - you're stuck with picking a gender. At least in English you don't have nouns automatically selecting gender for you, like in other languages.

nicoburns 8y ago
> You can choose between "he", "she" and "it", at least in regular English, sans the XXI-century additions. Or "they". People seem to think that singluar they is some kind of modern invention, but most people also use it all the time without thinking when talking about people that they don't know the gender.
- _emacsomancer_ 8y ago
  Not to mention it's used by Shakespeare and the King James Bible.
wonks 8y ago
Is it just me, or is humanizing these things so much itself kind of creepy? I prefer not to call Siri "she" for that reason alone.
- airstrike 8y ago
  I go all-in on the weirdness and make my Siri call me "master" just for shits and giggles

nicoburns 8y ago

> I’m utterly tired of robot-like things being given gender. I would actually prefer it if humans weren't given a gender either. Obviously we should recognise that people have different physical characteristics, but the abstraction of genders with different societal roles doesn't seem like a very useful one in this day and age.

gdffgdfhhh 8y ago
You can actually pretty much do what you want, regardless of your gender. It is a myth that your "sex" or "gender" forces you into certain roles. Your physical attributes may influence your roles, to some extent (giving birth, lifting heavy stuff,...).
- nicoburns 8y ago
  There are definitely segments of society that have different expectations for people they categorise as "men" and "women" though. I certainly come across "you're a man, can you help me open this jar" (even though I'm physically weaker than a lot of the women I live with), and plenty of people thinking that because I'm a man that I won't be caring/empathetic.
  - gdffgdfhhh 8y ago
    Nevertheless, you are not forced into certain roles. Except for some because of physical aspects, like being drafted into the military because you don't have a womb. People would have notions about other people without gender, too (like being caring or non-caring). You can be caring and empatetic as a man. More importantly, being a man doesn't make you non-caring.
TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I agree wholeheartedly! I make my robots non gendered as a kind of point that assigning gender to things that can’t or haven’t affirmed that is unhelpful. That includes baby humans. :)

joshstrange 8y ago

I too noticed the gender-ness of the description but I don't know if it matters. I bristled at it with the thought of "Why does it have to be a 'he'?" and then thought well if it was another "she" would I be thinking "Oh so only women can be 'assistants'?!". I get that non-gendered is probably the best but I wouldn't read too much into it. The author wrote this, it appears, for themselves and they can call it whatever they want as far as I'm concerned.

phishfi 8y ago
For my Google Assistant, I've made it a point to select a male voice, and I always refer to it as the Google Assistant or just Assistant. The choice in voice gender was so that my wife could keep the default female voice, and we would know it's responding under her account when she talks to a Home in our house vs defaulting to my account like it does for me or guests. Having said that, I've never heard a genderless voice (although there have been times when I'm on the phone and cannot make out the other person's sex from just their voice). I think this idea that everyone should stop considering gender as binary simply due to the apparently increase in gender dysphoria is a bit ridiculous. Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon").
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > I think this idea that everyone should stop considering gender as binary simply due to the apparently increase in gender dysphoria is a bit ridiculous. But gender isn't inherently binary, even if many but not all cultures have tended to ascribe gender from a binary pallette. > Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon"). They probably haven't aimed for genderlessness, and in fact has e probably avoided it, because real people have genders (whether or not aligned in the stereotypical way with external sex traits) and conforming to social expectations improves receptions (and, at least in America, there is significant research that, across genders of listeners, people on average respond more positively to feminine voices, which is why the default usually is for a feminine voice.)

lhinds 8y ago

Did you just assume this robots gender? /s

cabaalis 8y ago

Perhaps this is unreasonable as well, but maybe ongoing developments in society have caused you to focus a little too much of your attention on gender. Gender dysphoria is a recognized medical condition, for which there are suggested plans of treatment--up to and including hormone therapy and reassignment. Just go with the treatment, and be done with it, and accept that people who have done so were trying to make themselves better. I don't know why society is making it such a hot-button political issue. (Actually I do know why... politicians need to find wedge issues to split and enthuse people, to get votes.)

TaylorAlexander 8y ago
I’m not motivated by politicians (I hardly ever listen to them or endorse them). I’m motivated by the suffering I see in our society experienced by gender nonconforming individuals who feel uncomfortable in a world that believes in the gender binary. It’s interesting that you mention treatment. I’m not sure if you know any gender nonconforming people, but “just go with the treatment and be done with it” doesn’t really reflect accurately the experience I’ve seen other people have. Hormones and surgery can treat the symptoms of dysphoria but the cause seems to be society and the expectation that all people fit in to a binary. (Please ask if you’d like me to elaborate on that.) So here I am proscribing a treatment for society: stop gendering things unnecessarily and stop supporting a hard gender binary.
- airstrike 8y ago
  There are less gender nonconforming individuals than amputees. Let's tackle the big ticket items first.
  - rabidrat 8y ago
    51% of the population are women, who suffer from these gender roles. That's a super big-ticket group right there.
    - airstrike 8y ago

joppy 8y ago

The trend of the large assistants (Google Home, Alexa, Cortana) to all be female-voiced by default is pretty awful. Recently I tried to change the settings on an Alexa to try to get it to answer in a male voice, but I don't think it's possible.

mkl 8y ago
I think the explanation is more practical and less nefarious than you are implying: female voices are often easier to hear and understand, especially with background noise. Maybe it's different for other people, but that's certainly the case for me, in movies, lectures, radio, and synthesised voices.

darkpuma 8y ago

Amusingly Amazon could have simply dropped the trailing "a" and had a gender neutral name.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

microtherion 8y ago

Siri made some effort to be non-gendered, but I think most users still think of Siri as female.