Obsession With "Female" Digital Servants Needs To Change

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At first, I checked to make sure this wasn't an April Fools Day joke but the article is dated today. Are we now so politically correct that people are condemning the use of female voices for digital services?

Alexa, Tay, Siri, Cortana, Xiaoice, and Google Now. These technologies all have one thing in common - they are digital servants aimed at a mass-market audience that feature a "female" voice or persona. Am I the only one that thinks that this more than a little creepy?
 
Pretty sure you have choices to change the voice to male for some of them. Also those voices aren't creepy, but Glados is. But it's meant to be creepy.

Seems the author of that article realized this and put this.

"Note: In some territories, such as the UK, the default persona for Siri is "male.""

It's a feminist click bait article.

 
"No doubt you've also noticed that I've been putting the word "female" inside quotes, and that's very deliberate on my part. Despite how these technology solutions are packages to look, sound, or in the case of Tay and Xiaoice, behave, these digital characters are not female. It's all a fake."

What a complete waste of bandwidth this rant is. Has life become so easy and so good that all we have left to be upset about is this? Jesus, no wonder these hipsters need safe zones on college campuses. What a bunch of pussies. Can't just be that a female voice is softer and more pleasant to listen to than some gravelly male voice. Noooooo, it has to be something much more sinister.
 
Well when we can get James Earl Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, and possibly Morgan Freeman to do the voice work, we might have some male voices people will want to hear.

Of course then people will just be outraged that the voices are "black" :rolleyes:
 
Im not reading this, but is this guy gay? or does she have internalized misogyny.

Forgot to say, men have much better reading voices. Audio books with female readers, with my experiences, suck.
 
For us apple users, it's Settings>General>Siri>SiriVoice

My wife sets hers to a British male voice. She's a Downton Abbey fan.....

<edit>

Oh and I forgot to say, the author is obviously an idiot and the article is nothing more than poorly researched clickbait.
 
The obvious social justice solution to the problem of soft female voices is to replace them with aggressive male hip hop voices. Complete with expletives, pejoratives, and a condescending attitude.

On a lighter note, I find the male Siri to be much more pleasant to the ears.

What a complete waste of bandwidth this rant is.
Agreed.
 
"No doubt you've also noticed that I've been putting the word "female" inside quotes, and that's very deliberate on my part. Despite how these technology solutions are packages to look, sound, or in the case of Tay and Xiaoice, behave, these digital characters are not female. It's all a fake."

What a complete waste of bandwidth this rant is. Has life become so easy and so good that all we have left to be upset about is this? Jesus, no wonder these hipsters need safe zones on college campuses. What a bunch of pussies. Can't just be that a female voice is softer and more pleasant to listen to than some gravelly male voice. Noooooo, it has to be something much more sinister.
I remember reading something some time back that a female voice activates the same areas of the male brain that react to music. Meaning a female voice is naturally more pleasant to listen to. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with what is actually being said, of course.
 
I remember reading something some time back that a female voice activates the same areas of the male brain that react to music. Meaning a female voice is naturally more pleasant to listen to. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with what is actually being said, of course.

Part of this may just be old habit as well. Back in the old days when the frequency response on the speakers in most devices sucked, more female voices were used because they better fit the frequency reproduction profile of the target devices.
 
In a similar vein, I read an article that leveraged industry data from Garmin and TomTom that said the psychologically both men and women respond positively and with trust to "caucasian" female voices. Thus, this is why all of their GPS default to this type of voice.

My point is that I don't think anyone just randomly decided to use female voices. I think there is a fair amount of science behind it.
 
Don't know if this is completely true or not. Or of my memory is faulty but...

I remember seeing something that said it is easier to make a realistic and understandable female like voice than it is to make a male one.

Granted that has changed as tech got better but yeah. IMHO I prefer female voices because most male voices sound to comical.
 
siri-story.jpg
 
Urge to kill, rising... rising... falling... rising!!!!

Seriously, fuck these retards. I generally just laugh this sort of shit off, but this is absolutely fucking ridiculous no matter how you look at it.

Could it be that the female voice is just more pleasant to listen to in general?

Nah, it's gotta be because females should be our digital servants. :rolleyes:

While we're on the topic, what about butlers, and British male voices? I wonder if the butlers and Brits out there are getting outraged by this.
 
I'm going to keep oppressing fictional creatures and there's nothing anybody can do about it!

Me too! I fully intend to chain them up in my virtual basement, whenever I don't have them dressed up in virtual maid outfits, cleaning up the bits and bytes on my hard drive. :p

Disclaimer: I don't treat actual people this way, and treat women with the utmost respect. (well maybe not the ones that come up with something like this) However, I fully reserve the right to treat fictional digital entities however I please... So there...

Hey, while we're at it, can we have Siri call the police whenever someone asks her where to bury bodies?
 
I don't agree with the agenda being pushed here, although I have trouble hearing higher-pitched voices and I would probably benefit from a male voice option. I've heard that the reason they go with female voices is that the female ones tend to get people's attention more easily in an emergency situation. They've done studies on it, and it also helps with advertising. Doesn't matter whether the person in question is male or female... female voices get more attention from both, and they use that fact to their advantage. I doubt anything deeper than marketing was behind the decision.
 
Well when we can get James Earl Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, and possibly Morgan Freeman to do the voice work, we might have some male voices people will want to hear.

Of course then people will just be outraged that the voices are "black" :rolleyes:

Seriously? Weren't we being "told" a few weeks back that too many people were choosing male voices (authority) in Apps like Waze? Can they make up their minds? Are female voices good or bad?

Let me guess, it's "teh misogyneez" to have a female voice, unless it's "teh misogyneez" to choose a male voice.

FFS.
 
Well when we can get James Earl Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, and possibly Morgan Freeman to do the voice work, we might have some male voices people will want to hear.

Of course then people will just be outraged that the voices are "black" :rolleyes:

And Isaac Hayes, and Barry White!! Daaaammn Riiiigght! Can you dig it? I would actually pay for those as add-ons. Too bad they're no longer with us.
 
Where is the Shodan voice calling me pathetic (creature of meat and bone)?
 
Why do we even attempt to give them "human" voices? It's a lie! And so is the cake! All computers should only have electronic voices. ;) Especially those stupid automated computers that keep calling our houses. Do they really think they are fooling us with computers that respond to us talking to them? I simply ask those computer callers "Do computers have a middle name?" or anything away from "normal" conversation that they would have programmed a computer for. Then the computer gets confused and hangs up the phone on me. Freaking RUDE
 
Well, now that you mention it, I'd love a GlaDOS voice too!
 
"No doubt you've also noticed that I've been putting the word "female" inside quotes, and that's very deliberate on my part. Despite how these technology solutions are packages to look, sound, or in the case of Tay and Xiaoice, behave, these digital characters are not female. It's all a fake."

What a complete waste of bandwidth this rant is. Has life become so easy and so good that all we have left to be upset about is this? Jesus, no wonder these hipsters need safe zones on college campuses. What a bunch of pussies. Can't just be that a female voice is softer and more pleasant to listen to than some gravelly male voice. Noooooo, it has to be something much more sinister.

It was determined long ago that the female voice is easier to understand than the male voice. It just cuts right through and the one that is even harder to ignore is the crying baby.

When you are watching a movie and miss something an actor said and you rewind so you can listen again, how often is the actor male and how often female?

And I am not arguing your point. I am just adding some more detail to why a female voice is usually a better choice.
 
I've probably used the Google Now feature.... like three times, ever. I've only ever used Siri on my iPad to ask her troll questions.

My point? These digital servants aren't far along enough for me to give a shit what they sound like because I rarely use them as it is. Yet people find a way to bitch about it.
Pretty old.
 
isn't there science that we pay better attention to female voices?
 
I wonder if they considered that the tonal range that is easiest to hear and that people find most aesthetically pleasing is the female voice. As the apocryphal Freud quote goes, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". I think we try to over-analyze everything and attempt to turn every trivial aesthetic choice into a crisis.
 
isn't there science that we pay better attention to female voices?

Science aside, it is my PREFERENCE to listen to a female voice. (preferably British ;) ) That said, I don't use these voice features anyway, except for getting directions. Otherwise I get all of my information manually and with text.
 
I want KITT from Knight Rider and Glados from Portal. Seriously, why isn't this a thing?

If I remember correctly, you could get KITT for one brand of GPS voiced by the original actor. It would probably be pretty easy for someone to do GlaDOS. Shodan though, I'm not sure if the actor is still doing this type of thing. I'm hoping they get her for SS3. Maybe they could do mobile voices as a spinoff project. :D
 
I wonder if they considered that the tonal range that is easiest to hear and that people find most aesthetically pleasing is the female voice. As the apocryphal Freud quote goes, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar". I think we try to over-analyze everything and attempt to turn every trivial aesthetic choice into a crisis.
Sounds more like a Bill Clinton quote.
 
Over the Top Sarcasm...
Just by noticing the gender at all you pigs show your bias. There is no male or female, only bags of flesh with an identity crisis.

Over the Top Serious...
As a culture most of the world has an issue objectifying the human person (not just women) and making people objects to be used. This is true in all aspects of life. As a culture the world needs to start dealing with issues regarding defining human dignity both male and female in a non-relativistic way that embraces the natural duality of our existence. Different but equal and complementary in nature.
I'm not saying that men must only one way and women another. Simply that we not use each other as tools. A piece of electronics on the other hand is a tool.

Lets be real...
I use my phone with text to speech all the time because I have a 1.5hr. commute and choose to have books read to me. I've tried multiple voices male and female. I choose the female toned voice as I find it more pleasant and simpler to understand. I could care less about any social connotations and I have "Zero" feelings of sexuality towards my phone's reading voice. This is some 5th grade BS.
 
From "The Making of Star Trek", written by Stephen E Whitfield, and Gene Roddenberry (first published 1968, ISBN 1-85286-363-3, in the "Part II, An Official Biography of a Ship and its Crew", Chapter 2, page 152 it says:

It [the computer] uses a feminine voice, a familiar occurrence, even today. The pre-take-off system on today's F-105 Fighter, for example, speak to the pilots in a female voice because it has been discovered that the feminine voice penetrates noise better and results in improved response by men (and women).​
 
The pre-take-off system on today's F-105 Fighter, for example, speak to the pilots in a female voice because it has been discovered that the feminine voice penetrates noise better and results in improved response by men (and women).
This is exactly why I use the female voice while using Waze. I can make out what it says much more easily in a noisy environment. Actually the British female voice works best for me.
 
Somewhat related:

I once set up an Asterisk PBX server for a small software development company. We had one of the male devs voice the phone greeting and menu. Sure enough, customers complained...so we had to borrow a female friend's voice to sound more inviting and less angry.
 
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