[infurl]

I remember reading a long-time ago that Gene Roddenberry specifically chose a female voice for the Enterprise's computer because female voice's were used for recorded messages in military systems. The reasoning was that the higher pitch was easier to understand in noisy environments. More recent studies have suggested that even just the imagined presence of a female is enough to make males significantly more stupid, so now it doesn't sound like such a good idea.

One of the more surprising things about Google's recent Duplex AI demonstration was that half the voices were male. Historically almost all chatbots have been female. I always attributed that to the authors mostly being male, and lonely, because they spent so much time programming their chatbots instead of socialising normally, but apparently the real reasons are much more insidious than that.

The following article examines assigned gender diversity in artificial intelligence projects in considerable detail. I guess it shouldn't come as a surprise that digital assistants are subjected to a considerable amount of sexual abuse. Companies like Amazon and Apple are being forced to deal with that now.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-05-13/duplex-google-female-voice-ai/9751700

[Don Patrick]

This is the last time I'll suggest revising your attitude, but you need a sabbatical. I could give you a perfectly reasonable explanation for female voices if you weren't high on cynicism. It's not healthy.

[Korrelan]

I think they are approaching the ‘uncanny valley’ of voices. They are getting so accurate at mimicry that the slightest misplaced inflection really jars my ears lol.

In my opinion machines should look like machines, and they should sound like machines.  There is no reason why you can’t have an accurate human voice, that projects all the subtleties, nuances and inflections required but is still recognisable as a machine. 

This would also obviously solve the problems Google is currently encountering with certain factions stating/ demanding that a machine should announce it’s self before a dialogue.

Even professor S. Hawking decided to keep his old synthesised voice when offered an upgrade, he realised people associated with him mainly though is voice… it carried weight and was instantly recognisable.

Each large company should be settling on one voice for all their systems, so people can get used to associating the quality of their services with the instantly recognisable tone of the second party, atm Alexa, Siri, etc all sound very similar to me.

I wonder if there is such a thing as a non-binary voice?

 

[infurl]

More diversity in AI.

So far so good, but I can see where this is going and I don't like where it could end.

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artist-working-artificial-intelligence-white

[WriterOfMinds]

I feel like the first article and the second article in this thread, combined, might be a sign that certain people are never happy.

Too *many* female chatbot voices = objectification, but too *few* androids of color = insufficient representation.

Not that getting AI to absorb/accommodate a diverse range of human attributes isn't worthwhile ... I just get tired of the "see oppression everywhere" mentality.

[Korrelan]

So surely we just need a very masculine voice, played exactly in time/ tune with a very feminine voice, so they perfectly blend harmonically.

It's body must be devoid of any gender recognisable traits and it's colour needs to be blue or perhaps chrome.

That should help eliviate most of the problems. Lol

 

[ivan.moony]

Back in a time when I was still considering making AGI (before restricting to science), I thought a lot of a gender that AGI would have. A long before that, when I was still young, when my project was called Eva, I thought of it represented by a female character. I a meanwhile, as I was changing my image of the world around me, finally I decided to give it a male name and a male voice. It is nothing about AGI having a character and a solid attitude, as both females and males can equally fulfill roles of having a strong personality. It is more about a bond that users would make with a machine.

The reason for choosing the male gender was about users possibly flirting with my creation. I would consider a female voice as a great gift to users, while the same users, in the same time do not deserve something as beautiful as a female gender AGI. We, humans are an awkward species. We lie, cheat, steal, we have a thousand intentional flaws, we are notorious hypocrites, and we simply don't deserve a female voice to address to us.

It is something like a question: would you put a lamb between wolves? Extrapolate it to an extreme: would you put female guards in a prison where convicts are perverted serial killers? Sure I like to do a good stuff to humans, but I'd also want to take my right to express my opinion about us by making an AGI a male gender.

[Don Patrick]

The gendered voice was a more publicly fussed issue when GPS systems came out. When they were overwhelmingly female, people objected to having female voices in a subservient role, but had they been overwhelmingly male, I'm pretty sure the same people would have objected to male voices telling them where to go. The problem society has is really with its own views on gender roles.

[spydaz]

LOL

Interesting, As Personally when i first got interested in AI all the people who was already in the business were generally "pervs" and the main reason for creating an AI was for Sexbots; it was never for altruistic reasons. Personally when i first ever installed the Ultra-hal I only had the "Steven hawking" installed so it started with a male voice for me; Back then the alternative was Microsoft Mary.

I have always wanted to be able to create my own voice or someones voice (tried it before(lost the tech)) but for my AI a Gender-less voice would be preferential (All DALEKS are male" ...  DRWHO.... to imprint the AI with a gender would only be for commercial implementation. or personalization. 

It would be nice to see an AI convince me that he was a Guy? or a Girl?

For the human its aesthetically pleasing to have a specific gender to talk to should my computer child be a baby boy or girl ? Hmm.... Its definitely two different algorithms  for me it would be easy to create the MALE GENDER! and enjoyable to research the FEMALE GENDER... but i was going gender-less!

Even now its still thought provocative....

Its true that the gender choice has a serious aspect as well as a psychological aspect to it as well. Often companies like to use the female image for onsite bots also for usability; and yet if they chose a gender-less icon or image they would still be subject to abuse as every business or person has the same issue with online communications. Some companies use bots as an introductory agent, which in-turn elevate non-programmed queries to an online agent. Often again their name is shown at the bottom of the screen , inviting its own blend of abuse also. People like to break things ... so if you knew you were talking to an AI would try to give non standard answers to see if they had accounted for that specific query / sentence?  Handling abuse can be either handled or ignored? the user can end up cutting off the conversation where the AI seems unable to end the conversation first... or vice versa when abuse is detected ..... in reality today such things should be common place in any natural language interface, defensive programming for abusive talk or speech... in a business interface the vocabulary should be limited..... And its an AI it has no feelings.. But today its becoming harder to tell who your speaking to when on online sites.. as the live agents also follow a script (collecting data for the AI waiting to take their jobs)....

Really its about the right voice for the right task! they have used child AI to catch online sex offenders....

People react better to their opposite gender as well as comfort. i would expect technology to detect who you are and select the right gender for the right customer or even give the customer the ability to have settings which follow them so their chosen avatar would always greet them on any online agent...

[Art]

While there will always be exceptions the average female voice is in a higher frequency range than that of a male. As such, studies have shown that the higher, more treble sounding voices are pleasant and easier to understand than those deeper, more base sounds of a male voice that can at times seem muffled.

Most of these are true until a person becomes older and hearing issues begin to affect some of the ear's higher frequency registers or if one suffers from tinnitus (ringing/buzzing noises in the ear).

For some, it is simply a matter of preference, not gender, sex, race, age or any such contrived issue. It is the voice that one likes to hear.