Comment by kakwa_
6 years ago
I tend to agree, it sounds more like a woman's voice to me. I guess some people will hear a man's voice. It will be like "the dress is blue/yellow".
Case and point, this is probably not perceived as "neutral" but either male or female, which kind of defeats the point.
As a side note, it doesn't feal natural at all, which is a big downside in term of acceptance.
In term of objectives, I consider the fact that the vast majority of vocal assistants have female voices more of a symptom rather than a cause, specially since they are not (yet) ubiquitously used in homes. It's more indicative of deeper issues in our societies regarding gender equality. On a very simple level, it's a basic reflection to the fact most human secretaries and assistants are women.
I would love to see as many voice assistants using male voices as ones using female voices. Jarvis in the "Iron Man" series kind of proves this can be done. Pushing for a neutral voice is more of a band-aid.
There are languages, ie cultures, where iphones default to male. Since it is not random, the assumption must be that market studies and tests has shown a male voice being favored in those countries vs a female voice in other countries. It more than proves that a male voice can be used as default.
The discussion of which gender the voice assistant defaults to can basically be distilled down that people rating the experience of using the female version higher or lower than the male version in specific cultures. The question is why people of some cultures are biased towards a female voice, while other countries are biased towards a male voice.