
AI assistants like Siri and Alexa are perpetuating sexist stereotypes, UN says - Tomte
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/05/22/tech/alexa-siri-gender-bias-study-scli-intl/index.html
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misnome
This is something that I suspect could never be won. Female voices perpetuate
the stereotype of a servile woman. Male voices perpetuate the stereotype of a
man being more authoritative. A Gender neutral voice will have people queuing
up to claim it's not neutral enough, with a long list of specific sounding
edge cases arguing that it falls into either of those camps.

FWIW In my language (British) Siri is male by default, as it is apparently in
Arabic, Dutch and French also.

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ksaj
If Siri used a female voice in some countries/kingdoms, it would possibly be a
punishable offense. I'm unaware of cultures where the reverse may be true.
It's quite a quirk.

Why doesn't Siri et al have a circular slider like some of the digital music
synths have, where the sound coordinates are wood, string, glass and metalic,
along with other timbre controls on the side to allow emulation of just about
every instrument you can imagine.

One axis for voice pitch, and the other for softness. Done. Everyone's happy
then.

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belorn
Siri is default male for Arabic, French, Dutch and British English.

From countries where those languages are used, how many do you think have laws
that make a female Siri illegal?

Arabic, French, Dutch and British English speakers are a rather large portion
of the total customer of devices with Siri. If we don't count the US market,
male is likely the default in the majority of sold apple devices.

