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by EntropyIsAHoax 1301 days ago
Yes. It reliably responds to the wakeword ("hey Mycroft") from men, and only responds about 50% of the time to women.

When my sister visits, it almost never responded to her for example.

And in my personal experience, I used to have a very deep voice and it always responded to me. I decided I would rather have a more androgynous voice and did some voice training to accomplish that and use a pretty neutral pitch. Now it only responds to my normal voice about 50% of the time, so I intentionally drop my voice an octave whenever I speak to it.

But somehow it's not just about pitch either. I have friends who are trans men, and speak in a deep voice but they still have trouble getting Mycroft to respond.
2 comments
sampo 1301 days ago
> It reliably responds to the wakeword ("hey Mycroft") from men, and only responds about 50% of the time to women.

They have instructions on how to train your own version of the wakeword listener.

https://github.com/MycroftAI/mycroft-precise#train-your-own-...

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veidr 1301 days ago
OK, I see. Really interesting, but I guess not surprising. We talk a lot about inherent/implicit bias these days, and that's probably an example of it.

I wonder if the Mycroft project people are aware of the issue?

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EntropyIsAHoax 1301 days ago
They are: https://mycroft.ai/blog/hey-mycroft-listen-to-me/

Although it hasn't gotten better from my perspective. But until I searched for this, I was totally unaware they've provided an easy way to train your own model for the wakeword! https://mycroft-ai.gitbook.io/docs/using-mycroft-ai/customiz...

I will have to try that and if I remember I'll update here if it improves my situation in a few days

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