|
|
|
|
|
|
by phishfi
2678 days ago
|
|
|
For my Google Assistant, I've made it a point to select a male voice, and I always refer to it as the Google Assistant or just Assistant. The choice in voice gender was so that my wife could keep the default female voice, and we would know it's responding under her account when she talks to a Home in our house vs defaulting to my account like it does for me or guests. Having said that, I've never heard a genderless voice (although there have been times when I'm on the phone and cannot make out the other person's sex from just their voice). I think this idea that everyone should stop considering gender as binary simply due to the apparently increase in gender dysphoria is a bit ridiculous. Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon"). |
|
|
But gender isn't inherently binary, even if many but not all cultures have tended to ascribe gender from a binary pallette.
> Creating the voice for a digital Assistant is a perfect example of this, since the big companies involved have probably done a lot of research to try to determine the best way to make one that doesn't lend itself to a particular gender but always seem to default to a female voice / character (excluding this "Leon").
They probably haven't aimed for genderlessness, and in fact has e probably avoided it, because real people have genders (whether or not aligned in the stereotypical way with external sex traits) and conforming to social expectations improves receptions (and, at least in America, there is significant research that, across genders of listeners, people on average respond more positively to feminine voices, which is why the default usually is for a feminine voice.)