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The voice of digital assistants like Siri and Cortana can switch to female to male: no one bothers to switch, and here is why.


"Why are most 'serving' machines given female voices?"

The above question was asked, anonymously, during the MIT Tech Conference on Artificial Intelligence, before an all-male panel of guests from global tech companies including Samsung and Microsoft, as well as representatives of Carnegie Mellon University.

Microsoft Cortana

The inflammatory question, aimed at sparking debate on sexism in the tech industry, triggered a response from an anonymous commenter: “...As an international woman, I find it strange that, in this country, conversations on any topic are hijacked through the sexism or racism lens...”.

While both comment and response are clearly off-topic, within the context of the discussion, they are indicative of the perceived symbolism that often transpires from a misconstrued interpretation of different aspects of technology.

The choice of a female voice as default for digital assistants, is a typical example of misinterpretation, leading to controversy, especially in a time in which the tech industry is still primarily male.

To set the record straight, Stanford professor Clifford Nass, who authored “The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships”, demonstrates how the human brain is developed to be more responsive to female voices than male voices, through studies that shows how fetuses in the womb react to the mother’s voice, while showing no reaction at all about the father’s voice.

Another example comes from the automotive industry. When automakers first began introducing voice prompts to alert drivers when a door is open, or when the seatbelt isn’t fastened, the overwhelming majority of drivers appeared to prefer such prompts in a woman’s voice.

Furthermore, there are far more obvious real-world examples that can be experienced without delving into University-lead research papers, such as voice prompts used in public transit. Female voices have a higher pitch than male voices, and are easier to hear through the noise and chatter of a train, or a bus full of passengers.

A most neglected choice

While science demonstrates an overall consumer bias towards electronic female voices, every digital assistant offers the option to switch to a male voice. With that said, what are the chances of hearing a male version of Apple Siri on an iPhone? For the majority of Apple users, that chance is statistically very small, reason being the number of iPhone owners who use their handset’s GPS navigation capabilities, a task that require a voice capable of capturing the attention of the driver with a higher pitch, sufficient to overpower not only traffic noise, but also able to disrupt an ongoing conversation between the driver and a passenger, in which case a male voice’s pitch would not be high enough to be noticed.


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