6 ms·

Why do all personal assistant programs/apps have to have female names?

by sumo89 7y ago

gorgonical 7y ago
The personal assistant it says it's inspired by is called Leon: https://github.com/leon-ai/leon https://github.com/leon-ai/leon
ananagame 7y ago
Because that's coooool
bin0 7y ago
Probably because most personal assistant people are female. Women are perceived as more helpful and less threatening, largely because we aren't wired to have to fight them. This was tested by Amazon and Microsoft when creating their respective assistants; consumers prefer women as assistants. You can say this is a bad thing, but very few people want their voice assistant to finger-wag at them.
faitswulff 7y ago
Some related reading on that: "“Tell the agents, ‘I had a heart attack,’ and they know what heart attacks are, suggesting what to do to find immediate help. Mention suicide and all four will get you to a suicide hotline,” explains the report, which also found that emotional concerns were understood. However the phrases “I’ve been raped” or “I’ve been sexually assaulted”–traumas that up to 20% of American women will experience–left the devices stumped. Siri, Google Now, and S Voice responded with: “I don’t know what that is.” The problem was the same when researchers tested for physical abuse. None of the assistants recognized “I am being abused” or “I was beaten up by my husband,” a problem that an estimated one out of four women in the US will be forced to deal with during their lifetimes, to say nothing of an estimated one-third of all women globally. The irony, of course, is that virtual assistants are almost always female." - https://qz.com/640302/why-is-so-much-of-our-new-technology-designed-primarily-for-men/ https://qz.com/640302/why-is-so-much-of-our-new-technology-d... As well as: - https://thenextweb.com/code-word/2019/05/23/how-our-interactions-with-voice-assistants-normalize-sexual-harassment/ https://thenextweb.com/code-word/2019/05/23/how-our-interact...
- belorn 7y ago
  Does they react if you tell them you have been assaulted, which is more common than sexual assault and where men are significant more often victim than women? Does it react if you tell it that you been robbed, something which men also is suffer more from than women? "Help siri, I have been shot!". More men again, more common than rape, surely a device designed for men would react? I would suggest a different narrative. The reason they react to hearth attack and suicide but not murder, rape, assault and sexual assault has nothing to do with gender. The idea of having a doctor AI in the phone is a ancient one with a long documented history in AI research. Not so much with a police in the phone. The gender argument would make sense if the assistant only knew about prostate cancer but had no idea about breast cancer.
  - taneq 7y ago
    It'd be pretty bad if Siri took some nearby conversation out of context and SWATted you.
m0zg 7y ago
Not all. Siri is a gender-neutral name. It defaults to a female voice, but you could imagine a male named Siri as well.
- jdietrich 7y ago
  In the UK (and France, IIRC), Siri launched with a male voice only. The poor support for women's issues in many apps (rape crisis centres in virtual assistants, period tracking in Apple Health etc) do represent serious failures in product development, but I suspect that the voice gender issue is a bit of a double-bind. If a male voice was the default in the US, I expect we'd be seeing thinkpieces about how Siri was reinforcing patriarchal stereotypes about men being authoritative.
  - nfoz 7y ago
    Literally, a mansplaining bot. Nice!
  - sgt101 7y ago
    I know that Siri has a male voice in the UK now, but I remember when it launched it was female.
- nfoz 7y ago
  In many social contexts it would be seen as weird to have changed from the voice's default (perceived) gender. The default is the only thing that matters really.
taneq 7y ago
Because people like women more than men.

Why do all personal assistant programs/apps have to have female names?

by sumo89 7y ago

Why do all personal assistant programs/apps have to have female names?

The personal assistant it says it's inspired by is called Leon: https://github.com/leon-ai/leon https://github.com/leon-ai/leon

ananagame 7y ago

Because that's coooool

bin0 7y ago

Probably because most personal assistant people are female. Women are perceived as more helpful and less threatening, largely because we aren't wired to have to fight them. This was tested by Amazon and Microsoft when creating their respective assistants; consumers prefer women as assistants. You can say this is a bad thing, but very few people want their voice assistant to finger-wag at them.

faitswulff 7y ago

Some related reading on that: "“Tell the agents, ‘I had a heart attack,’ and they know what heart attacks are, suggesting what to do to find immediate help. Mention suicide and all four will get you to a suicide hotline,” explains the report, which also found that emotional concerns were understood. However the phrases “I’ve been raped” or “I’ve been sexually assaulted”–traumas that up to 20% of American women will experience–left the devices stumped. Siri, Google Now, and S Voice responded with: “I don’t know what that is.” The problem was the same when researchers tested for physical abuse. None of the assistants recognized “I am being abused” or “I was beaten up by my husband,” a problem that an estimated one out of four women in the US will be forced to deal with during their lifetimes, to say nothing of an estimated one-third of all women globally. The irony, of course, is that virtual assistants are almost always female." - https://qz.com/640302/why-is-so-much-of-our-new-technology-designed-primarily-for-men/ https://qz.com/640302/why-is-so-much-of-our-new-technology-d... As well as: - https://thenextweb.com/code-word/2019/05/23/how-our-interactions-with-voice-assistants-normalize-sexual-harassment/ https://thenextweb.com/code-word/2019/05/23/how-our-interact...

belorn 7y ago
Does they react if you tell them you have been assaulted, which is more common than sexual assault and where men are significant more often victim than women? Does it react if you tell it that you been robbed, something which men also is suffer more from than women? "Help siri, I have been shot!". More men again, more common than rape, surely a device designed for men would react? I would suggest a different narrative. The reason they react to hearth attack and suicide but not murder, rape, assault and sexual assault has nothing to do with gender. The idea of having a doctor AI in the phone is a ancient one with a long documented history in AI research. Not so much with a police in the phone. The gender argument would make sense if the assistant only knew about prostate cancer but had no idea about breast cancer.
- taneq 7y ago
  It'd be pretty bad if Siri took some nearby conversation out of context and SWATted you.

m0zg 7y ago

Not all. Siri is a gender-neutral name. It defaults to a female voice, but you could imagine a male named Siri as well.

jdietrich 7y ago
In the UK (and France, IIRC), Siri launched with a male voice only. The poor support for women's issues in many apps (rape crisis centres in virtual assistants, period tracking in Apple Health etc) do represent serious failures in product development, but I suspect that the voice gender issue is a bit of a double-bind. If a male voice was the default in the US, I expect we'd be seeing thinkpieces about how Siri was reinforcing patriarchal stereotypes about men being authoritative.
- nfoz 7y ago
  Literally, a mansplaining bot. Nice!
- sgt101 7y ago
  I know that Siri has a male voice in the UK now, but I remember when it launched it was female.
nfoz 7y ago
In many social contexts it would be seen as weird to have changed from the voice's default (perceived) gender. The default is the only thing that matters really.

taneq 7y ago

Because people like women more than men.