Siri, a little less sexist than other voice assistants

A new study from Indiana University
focused on the types of virtual assistants that equip our
smartphones and other connected devices. It turns out that they are rather
sexist in a majority of cases,except Siri, Who
is surprisingly the only one to offer a change from voice to voice
masculine :

The study in question compared the behavior of users regarding
known virtual assistants. She demonstrated that men and women
prefer to use a female voice for artificial intelligence.
Microsoft and Amazon, in previous studies, had also found the
same result for their own respective virtual assistant solution.

The study goes further and specifies that unconsciously, users have even
discriminative preferences in relation to sex depending on the context. In
indeed, for learning about computers for example, the
users prefer to hear a man's voice. On the other hand, to hear
talk about relationships and love, female voice is preferred. Note, these
two sexist choices are not dependent on the sex of the respondents.

Finally, it is specified that even if user behavior is not
egalitarian on the gender of the virtual assistant,it is also not the
cases among manufacturers. As proof, Alexa, Google Assistant and
Cortana all offer a female voice by default, knowing in addition that it
is not possible to go and choose a male voice in a second step in
each respective system.

Only Siri stands out, since even if the voice of Apple's assistant is
a female voice by default in a majority of countries around the world, including the USA,
on the one hand, it is surprisingly a man's voice which is set by default in 4
languages, French, Arabic, Dutch and British English. On the other hand,
iOS offers the possibility of changing Siri's voice according to your preference, by
male voice or female voice.

This is easily done inSettings > Siri > Siri Voice >
Sex.

And you, which voice did you choose and why?

Source

Editor-in-chief for iPhon.fr. Pierre is like Indiana Jones, looking for the lost iOS trick. Also a long-time Mac user, Apple devices hold no secrets for him. Contact: pierre[a]iphon.fr.