Comment by wahern

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.