Why are all virtual assistants women?

Have you noticed that everything is so arranged in our world that everywhere you can find pros and cons, black and white, male and female? It is clear that on Habré 76.1 percent of men , therefore, if you experience a hard antagonism to thematic posts, you can safely continue not to read. Under the cat a lot of pictures and a couple of curious stories about why modern virtual assistants speak in female voices.


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Scientists say that finding a female voice that everyone likes is much easier than a male one. A woman’s voice is associated with the mother’s voice, and therefore most people tend to respond positively to it.



The forerunners of virtual assistants — telephone operators, dispatchers, and secretaries — were mostly women. Back in the forties, the American military pilots "affectionately" called the onboard robot "bitchy Betty" (Bitching Betty) - for a kind of intonation of a mechanized voice. By the end of the 20th century, when voice systems moved from airplanes to automobiles, manufacturers even had to face complaints: for example, in the 1990s, BMW customers (of course, men) opposed the built-in GPS navigator in a female voice. They did not want to "listen to the woman" while driving! The Soviet experience was the dubbing of autoinformers in the Moscow metro. Have you ever noticed that all stations towards the center are announced by a male voice, and from the center by a female voice? This initiative was proposed by the Blind Society in 1984 for the convenience of orienting visually impaired passengers; however, its own association quickly arose among the people: the head (man) calls the center (for work) and a woman from the center (home). Such an example of domestic, subconscious sexism is not uncommon, but only ardent feminists will consider it a crime.



It is likely that in everyday life, each of us more than once heard the voices of modern virtual assistants. I propose to combine the sound with the image. If you are impressionable and do not want to destroy the idyllic picture of the world, it’s worth reading to end.

Siri

All the beautiful applefiles on the planet know this beautiful virtual woman. She has been living with us since 2005. Yes, it was then that the first time Siri (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) - cloud virtual assistant found its original voice. In the first version of Siri for American users in her image materialized actress on dubbing Susan Bennett . In 2005, she signed a contract with ScanSoft and for four hours a day for a whole month slandered incoherent phrases on a dictaphone. Beginning with iOS 7 , Siri for US users spoke in a different voice. By the way, Apple many times disowned communication with this beautiful lady. Whose voice speaks Russian Siri for me personally is still a mystery.

Cortana

Microsoft's equally charming virtual assistant is Cortana. Her female image belongs to American actress Jen Taylor. By the way, she lives near the Parallels office in Seattle. I must say that by her 44 years, she has not a very big filmography and only a few roles in theatrical productions. However, she has been quite successful in the gaming industry. Jane is widely known to fans of the game Halo, as the performer of the role of the original Cortana - artificial intelligence to help the player throughout the game. She also played Zoya in Left 4 Dead, Princess Peach, Tod and Todette in various Mario games, Dota 2 characters - Lina, Windranger, Puck and Medusa.

Yandex Navigator

The voice accompanying millions of Central Asian taxi drivers across the country belongs to the beautiful Oksana Mandryka. It is she who patiently listens to all sorts of: "Wei, beauty, how to go yes Praspekst Mira" and so on. It is she who gives sacred knowledge of the short route to everyone, from the driver of the murdered "Shah" to the respectable Bentley. It is noteworthy that, unlike the above heroines, Oksana was not a professional actress. For many years she worked in the Ukrainian office of Yandex as a marketing manager. Oksana passed the company's internal casting in 2014 and recorded all the audio tracks for the navigator. Unfortunately, according to a number of media reports, not so long ago she left the company and moved to Germany for permanent residence. But despite everything, Oksana will forever remain in the hearts and navigators of millions of motorists in our country.

GPS

The voice of this Australian beauty says overseas navigation system. It was an Australian singer, announcer, vocal teacher and just a beauty, Karen Jacobson fifteen years ago voiced all that accompanies us to this day on trips. By the way, she is an Australian Siri. In 2015, Karen was elected President of the National Association of Announcers in New York. Jacobson has published two books, “Recount - Driving Route” and “Road Map: A GPS Navigator Girl for Your Future.” In short, a talented person is talented in everything.

Alexa

This beauty materialized in early 2017 and immediately enriched her founding father from Amazon, Jeff Bezos. In January, after the presentation of the Alexa project at an exhibition in Las Vegas, the company's capitalization grew by $ 4 billion. Sources claim that the voice of the virtual assistant from the movie Star Trek became its prototype. Others associate the name Alexa with the Library of Alexandria, which served as a source of knowledge for ancient civilizations. Surprisingly, if you ask Alexa , in whose voice she speaks, she responds with her own. The developers claim that their brainchild sounds 100% synthesized speech. Is it so? May be. In the meantime, catch the Star Trek type in the face of Major Barrett Roddenberry. By the way, it also inspired the founders of Google to develop the Majel voice assistant for Android drivers.

SHE IS

Concluding the topic of female images in virtual reality, I would like to draw your attention to the voice of their film “She”. The film "She" with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role tells from the novel between the writer and the operating system. Samantha, an obedient electronic girl, indulges all the desires of her beloved, but another reason why the main character is fascinated by her. I will not spoil further, I will say only that the voice of the virtual assistant belongs to the beauty Scarlett Johanson.



In the final, I would like to casually touch on the topic of the objectification of images, systems and objects. You did not notice that after some time you start to form your personal attitude to something? Favorite phone, hated sistemnik, ugly tablet and so on. And these stories, when people start talking to the TV or car? Classic! Virtual assistants are not deprived in this sense of attention. Surprisingly, the researchers argue that flirting is one of the reasons why users initially turn to the help of a virtual assistant. It is clear that, to a certain extent, this looks strange and breathes deviations, but the fact remains. For example, in 2010, an article by writer Bruce Feiler was published in the New York Times. He declared that he was in love with GPS: “She gives me what I want and does not ask for anything in return. I just have to include it from time to time, and that makes her happy. Our relationship revolves around me. ”



In general, the topic of sexual harassment to virtual assistants seems to be very acute . At the beginning of 2016, Deborah Harrison, one of the editors of the Cortana replicas of the program, reported that the program had “irritated” aggressive, racist and sexist requests. According to Harrison, “such behavior will not be promoted by the company,” after all, the virtual “woman” of the 21st century should be able to stand up for itself. In a word “Freedom to Angela Davis!” And with the holiday, our dear ladies!