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To those asking: the problem with gendered voice assistants is that they are almost always female. The argument is that this trains people to think of women as

by blhack 8y ago

To those asking: the problem with gendered voice assistants is that they are almost always female. The argument is that this trains people to think of women as subservient, or things to be ordered around. I love the idea behind this, although I don't necessarily agree that they have achieved their goal, but perhaps that says something about me more than it does about the service itself. To me, this still sounds like a female voice, just pitch-shifted.

losvedir 8y ago
So why not just use a male voice then?
grrowl 8y ago
And around the other way, the reason people respond better to female assistant voices is because our culture has historically treated women as subservient. This important change (to our old gendered culture, and new nearly universally female automated assistants) is coming, so at least Q is pushing the conversation.
kkarakk 8y ago
Trains is hard job
collarzoon 8y ago
> The argument is that this trains people to think of women as subservient, or things to be ordered around. But isn't that like people who assumed that violent games make people more violent (which was proven false in research)? To me this looks more like pushing some agenda trough from some activists in the gender debate.
mrob 8y ago
There are technical reasons to use a female voice. A female voice better matches the frequency response of the human ear than a male voice, and the frequency response of small loudspeakers like those found in phones. However, a pitched-up male voice could have the same frequency content, and it wouldn't sound any weirder than this "neutral" voice.
kuzehanka 8y ago
> The argument is that this trains people to think of women as subservient, or things to be ordered around. Sounds like an extraordinary claim going unsubstantiated. Unlike that claim, the reason why voice assistants are overwhelmingly female is well known. It's because both users of both sexes overwhelmingly prefer a female voice in focus groups. That facet of Siri et al has been studied very thoroughly.

by blhack 8y ago

losvedir 8y ago

So why not just use a male voice then?

grrowl 8y ago

And around the other way, the reason people respond better to female assistant voices is because our culture has historically treated women as subservient. This important change (to our old gendered culture, and new nearly universally female automated assistants) is coming, so at least Q is pushing the conversation.

kkarakk 8y ago

Trains is hard job

collarzoon 8y ago

> The argument is that this trains people to think of women as subservient, or things to be ordered around. But isn't that like people who assumed that violent games make people more violent (which was proven false in research)? To me this looks more like pushing some agenda trough from some activists in the gender debate.

mrob 8y ago

There are technical reasons to use a female voice. A female voice better matches the frequency response of the human ear than a male voice, and the frequency response of small loudspeakers like those found in phones. However, a pitched-up male voice could have the same frequency content, and it wouldn't sound any weirder than this "neutral" voice.

kuzehanka 8y ago

> The argument is that this trains people to think of women as subservient, or things to be ordered around. Sounds like an extraordinary claim going unsubstantiated. Unlike that claim, the reason why voice assistants are overwhelmingly female is well known. It's because both users of both sexes overwhelmingly prefer a female voice in focus groups. That facet of Siri et al has been studied very thoroughly.