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Comment by oldgun

6 years ago

I mean no offense, but how is this really solving any problems? How is inventing a new voice many people are uncomfortable with really making the world a better place? A user configurable male/female voice could just work.

9 comments

oldgun

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BenFrantzDale  6 years ago

The idea, I think, is that it matters that/if we gender our digital servants—that as we use them more it will affect our sense of gender rolls. That Siri and Alexa are both female by default puts them in the stereotypical female-secretary roll.

I have Waze speak as a British male, of course then he sounds like a stereotypical butler. It would be fun if I could set it to be Batman or HAL9000, but it would probably get old.

  • wahern  6 years ago

    And it's the same wrong idea as violent video games making children more violent. Both (a) fail to appreciate substantive causes and relationships, and (b) discount the nuanced contextual distinctions that people (even children) naturally make.

    Aside from the motivations of the engineers (which are unclear and maybe even irrelevant), I think it's interesting technical work, including taking a stab at gender perception in speech patterns with a bold application.

  • seventhtiger  6 years ago

    I mean, to really address this problem, don't we need genderless employees in the workplace?

    • gregknicholson  6 years ago

      We already have them. I'm agender and I'm typing this from my workplace (during lunch).

      The response to this AI voice demonstrates that a lot of people automatically hear any human(ish) voice as either female or male, one or the other. Similarly, people automatically recognise individuals as either female or male, one or the other. There's a very narrow band of presentation that won't be read automatically as one of those two options.

      See how difficult it is to stop your brain from making automatic (possibly false) assumptions.

      1 reply →

  • greyman  6 years ago

    > That Siri and Alexa are both female by default puts them in the stereotypical female-secretary roll.

    But isn't this happening only if some marxist is searching for this "problem"? I never considered it this way, until your comment.

    It's like with the service OP is presenting... they are offering "solution" to made up problem.