Comment by PaulHoule
6 years ago
I find it artistically interesting. A computer assistant doesn't have a gender so why should it represent itself as male or female?
I find something offputting that so many agents pick a female voice (e.g. Alexa, Siri)
> A computer assistant doesn't have a gender so why should it represent itself as male or female
A human has to be in the recording booth to create the vocal library. Also you can change the Siri voice to not only be Male, but also have a different accent.
> A human has to be in the recording booth to create the vocal library.
do they? i mean, we're not great at synthesizing natural-sounding voices yet, but that's a technical challenge – not something inherent to the problem.
What would make it "natural-sounding", though? What if that happens to include gender stereotypes?
I don't think it's possible to assert that it's purely a technical challenge before we understand the goal clearly, beyond "I'll know it when I hear it".
I find something offputting that so many agents pick a female voice (e.g. Alexa, Siri)
Its research based, not merely "sexism":
https://www.cnn.com/2011/10/21/tech/innovation/female-comput...
OP didn't say it was sexism, they said it was offputting.
> A computer assistant doesn't have a gender so why should it represent itself as male or female?
One could argue that a computer assistant should have a human-like voice and an overwhelming majority of humans have distinctly male or female voices.