3 ms·

Why are all computerized natural-language "assistants" all modeled as female? (Siri, Cortana, Betty...) A remnant of the view of women's role as "secretaries"?

Why are all computerized natural-language "assistants" all modeled as female? (Siri, Cortana, Betty...) A remnant of the view of women's role as "secretaries"? It's interesting to see that this applies to real-world products, which are still kind of "dumb" or single-minded (as in default voices for GPS navigation assistants), while in fiction, when computers are smarter than its owner (HAL, Jarvis) they more are often than not represented as male.

HCIdivision17 12y ago
I think you can find quite a few counter examples of a female AI, not least of which Cortana. It's possible to imagine S'Jet as an example, though perhaps much closer to Transcendence (movie) than AI. Really, I think it simply has a lot to do with the voice. I'll be darned if I can recall the source, but it seems that women can usually be understood more clearly and easily than men; that claim may be only over a lossy channel, but it seems to jive with my experience (listening to podcasts on a motorcycle, women tend to be easier to make out over the noise, and even Google maps' female voice is clear over a highway's roar).
TeMPOraL 12y ago
AFAIK, J.A.R.V.I.S. was modeled after a butler. As a counterexample for smarter-than-its-owner AI you have Jane from Ender's Game series.
unfunco 12y ago
I think it's partially region-based, in the United Kingdom, Siri is a male. (Perhaps it's somehow related to butlers, where as in the United States, secretaries were more common.) Betty was also likely named Betty because of the last three letters, there's no voice with the application, it's only gendered because of the name.
mantrax5 12y ago
Well Siri isn't female (and "Siri" as a name isn't a girl or boy name per se), its voice gender varies depending on the country. Apple uses the highest quality voice they have as the default. If you ask Siri what's its gender, it famously replies "I haven't been assigned a gender". Even then though, female voice usually wins for phone voice services. Why? Turns out males voices are more "lossy" over plain-old-telephone-service and over tiny tinny speakers (like on the iPhone). The frequency range of a female voice maps to less loss in this speaker/service range compared to a deep male voice, where the lower frequencies get lost. So female voices are easier to understand in such circumstances. This explains in part why OSX has a male voice, because a Mac comes by default with much better speakers than a phone does. Even then deeper voices are still not preferred. The "in a time..." movie trailer voice isn't coming to an AI assistant any time soon. As for Cortana, the basically nude Halo AI bimbo, you have a point there, awkward choice for a commercial product, but that's Microsoft's problem. They've always had awkward marketing/branding choices, so this fits in. As for Betty, "Betty the secretary" reference is quite obvious, but as a personal project, I'd say he's forgiven.

HCIdivision17 12y ago

I think you can find quite a few counter examples of a female AI, not least of which Cortana. It's possible to imagine S'Jet as an example, though perhaps much closer to Transcendence (movie) than AI. Really, I think it simply has a lot to do with the voice. I'll be darned if I can recall the source, but it seems that women can usually be understood more clearly and easily than men; that claim may be only over a lossy channel, but it seems to jive with my experience (listening to podcasts on a motorcycle, women tend to be easier to make out over the noise, and even Google maps' female voice is clear over a highway's roar).

TeMPOraL 12y ago

AFAIK, J.A.R.V.I.S. was modeled after a butler. As a counterexample for smarter-than-its-owner AI you have Jane from Ender's Game series.

unfunco 12y ago

I think it's partially region-based, in the United Kingdom, Siri is a male. (Perhaps it's somehow related to butlers, where as in the United States, secretaries were more common.) Betty was also likely named Betty because of the last three letters, there's no voice with the application, it's only gendered because of the name.

mantrax5 12y ago

Well Siri isn't female (and "Siri" as a name isn't a girl or boy name per se), its voice gender varies depending on the country. Apple uses the highest quality voice they have as the default. If you ask Siri what's its gender, it famously replies "I haven't been assigned a gender". Even then though, female voice usually wins for phone voice services. Why? Turns out males voices are more "lossy" over plain-old-telephone-service and over tiny tinny speakers (like on the iPhone). The frequency range of a female voice maps to less loss in this speaker/service range compared to a deep male voice, where the lower frequencies get lost. So female voices are easier to understand in such circumstances. This explains in part why OSX has a male voice, because a Mac comes by default with much better speakers than a phone does. Even then deeper voices are still not preferred. The "in a time..." movie trailer voice isn't coming to an AI assistant any time soon. As for Cortana, the basically nude Halo AI bimbo, you have a point there, awkward choice for a commercial product, but that's Microsoft's problem. They've always had awkward marketing/branding choices, so this fits in. As for Betty, "Betty the secretary" reference is quite obvious, but as a personal project, I'd say he's forgiven.