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Tech Firms Have An Obsession With 'Female' Digital Servants (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Alexa, Tay, Siri, Cortana, Xiaoice, and Google Now. These technologies all have one thing in common -- they are digital servants aimed at a mass-market audience that feature a "female" voice or persona. And it's not just the voice or persona of the digital persona we interact with that is biased. The results of those interactions also demonstrate male favoritism. It took Apple more than four years to fix Siri's responses to questions about abortion services, and yet the company didn't seem to have any problem programming Siri to search for prostitutes and Viagra. Here's the gender breakdown for the tech workforce of each company:
Microsoft: 83.0% male, 16.9% female
Google: 82.0% male, 18.0% female
Apple: 79.0% male, 22.0% female
Amazon: 61.0% male, 39.0% female
Microsoft: 83.0% male, 16.9% female
Google: 82.0% male, 18.0% female
Apple: 79.0% male, 22.0% female
Amazon: 61.0% male, 39.0% female
Make it happen.
This signature is false.
See subject.
What the fuck is wrong with having robots with female voice?
Please tell me the rationale of politicizing *everything*, including digital servants having female voices?
We in the tech field are focus on inventing, we really don;t give a fuck on whether those SJW like what we do or not
If they don't fucking like what we do, go invent their own digital servants and STOP BOTHERING US
I am fucking fed-up with those assholes!!!
I mean, we are not talking about some 'sex toy' or some 'porno-gadget', we are talking about digital assistances with female voice
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I think the dumbest part of this is that the preferred gender of the voice tends to go by cultural norms rather than the company that made the damn thing. Middle eastern cultures, which are by far more male dominant than even the most male dominant tech company in the US, will either get offended or pissed off (or both) if a female voice gives them directions.
In western cultures, women are just more culturally inclined to take caretaker (as in medicine, grade school teacher, babysitter) or assistant type jobs (for an anecdote, my uncle's family is really into computers, and all three of his boys are going into tech related jobs, but his daughter wants to be a dentist even though she's had the same tech exposure that they had.)
... and whiny users commenting about other whiny users -- it's a paradox. Welcome to the internet.
Women have better voices for marketing, plain and simple. The majority of commercials have female voices for the same reason these "robots" (sorry, I don't consider them robots) do.
Certain female voices are hard on the ears, but the range of woman's voices considered pleasant dwarfs male's.
TFA misses that basic information and jumps right to the typical rants about discrimination, which have been verified false over and over and over. Social engineering does not like or want facts, they want to manipulate. So far, they are doing just that because the populous does not fact check anything. Even those that claim to be scientific use bias at least as often than facts.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Now imagine the shrill cries of favoritism if all these assistants were male voices. Offendatrons really like looking for things to be angry about.
Relax, tumblrinas. If there's one thing you can count on it's that these things will be configurable very soon and you can finally get that Macho Man Randy Savage voice telling you: "You've got mail... YEEEEEEEEAAAAH"
It's nowhere near close to gender population of qualified coders.
What we have here is discrimination against men.
Here's the breakdown of my level of care over tech workplace gender equality:
0%
Women who want to work in tech are not prevented from doing so, which is evidenced by the fact that they do happen to work in tech. Progress past the mythical problem already - it doesn't actually exist.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
bullshit article for bullshit times.
why? because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.
besides than that, you can change the voice - and the company men/women ratios seem pretty healthy considering that the tech university I went to had like 10 women per 100 men in the relevant to google/apple/ms fields.
oh and the irony that if they hire women assistants even if they have nothing for them to do then the numbers look "better"..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Am I the only one that's bothered by the fact that Microsoft's breakdown adds up to not-quite-100% and Apple's breakdown actually adds up to more than 100%? Who's doing this math anyway?
Stand outside that nightclub with a thumping bass. Have someone near you play a bass guitar softly. Have someone near you play a triangle softly. Assuming you aren't drastically hearing impaired, which would you hear better over the background noise?
I know you mean well but your post illustrates why this is still an issue.
No it doesn't. You are just leaping to that conclusion, for obvious sjw reasons.
If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?
Sigh.. the ratio of men to women at his university is the opposite of what you think. There are surely far more women than men overall enrolled as students, they just didnt enroll in the classes that he is talking about. Now because you are a simpleton sjw alarmist you took what he said to mean the worst possible and most inclusive thing, rather than the best possible and least inclusive thing.
See, now you predent to care about knowledge.. after all, you ask "arent you interested to know why?" yet it is you that repeatedly demonstrates the least knowledge on these sjw subjects. Didn't you know that women enroll in colleges are far higher rates than men? You've been told before... so I guess your version of knowledge is highly selective, just like its supposed to be in a simpleton sjw alarmist..you are a tool of people that arent interested in knowledge.
"His name was James Damore."
Because they are all taking gender studies instead of STEM-field studies. So they can point out the fact that more women need to be employed in STEM without actually doing anything about it themselves. Obviously. And what Rockoon said. The worldwide trend is: The gender gap at universities: where are all the men? The other narrative is ofcourse far more popular.
Why would the author of this article call a female voice that helps people a 'servant'. That seems kind of sexist and demeaning to me. Is is OK now to refer to people, including women, who work on help lines 'servants'?
If the ratio of women to men at your university is so low, aren't you interested to know why?
Literally interested or "don't you feel urge to try to have 50/50 ratio"?
There are next to no men working in Kindergartens, aren't you interested to know why?
There are next to no women in construction industry, aren't you interested to know why?
There is monstrous wage disparity between genders in modelling industry, aren't you interested to know why?
The problem is, recalling your earlier comments, I think you are interested neither in items that I've listed, nor even in your own example.
Because, it seems that you have decided on "why" long ago, namely that it is because one gender is suppressing another in some way is the only explanation you have for such disparities
What makes things worse worse, you only care about certain gender, but not the other - which is actually quite inconsistent with the idea of equality.
There are more women than men at most universities but they seldom study anything useful (no offense). It's college for college's sake. If you want to get more women in 'STEM' you could start by killing Gender Studies.
No one seems to mind Gender Studies is mostly filled with women though.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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There are more women than men at most universities but they seldom study anything useful (no offense). It's college for college's sake. If you want to get more women in 'STEM' you could start by killing Gender Studies.
If by "nothing useful" you mean elementary education, early childhood development, nursing, and medicine then I would agree with you but otherwise you're full of it. I've never met anyone who majored in gender studies but I do know a ton of women that go into feel good majors that are vital to society and help people but unfortunately don't pay well.
why? because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.
Worse than that. Most (all? Honestly never heard of "Xiaoice") of those services let you change the voice, with several male options available - And even when people do change them, they still pick a female voice.
You can debate the societal implications of that, but don't blame Apple/Amazon/Microsoft/etc for supplying exactly what their market asked for.
because if it were all male voices then the same fucking story would be posted but with a twist that women are stupid so you can't use the voice for an assistant.
When dealing with SJW's, the only winning move is not to play.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
So you know better than gl4ss
Man, the simple mindness continues.
To make it 100% clear, gl4ss said :
"In this particular field, I see 10 women for 100 men"
Amimojo said :
"The overall ratio of men and women at your university".
This is how things like the Wage Gap myth get started. Someone makes an observation about a niche or specific field, Internet Slacktivists blow it up into a "Applies to everyone, all the time" scenario.
In STEM, the ratio of women to men advantages MEN. In University in GENERAL, there are more women enrolled than there are men. There are more women graduating than men do.
It can be BOTH. And to answer Amimojo : No, we don't particularly care to know why women don't enroll in STEM, we assume it's because they aren't interested. The ones that are interested enroll and that's good enough for us.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Can we also see the breakdown of gender for:
What will we be doing to address this disparity?
People call you a SJW not because they disagree with you, but because you're an Internet Slacktivists who uses Social Justice to do Virtue Signaling, while constantly responding in an attempt at damage control in all these Gender/Race baiting article comment sections.
SJW is a pejorative for a bunch of blowhards who talk a lot of smack online, but don't do much IRL about Social Justice. And the posturing they do online is more sexist and racist (Color blindness, learn it, stop asking for seggration of "minorities" in "Safe spaces") than the "bigots" they are attacking.
Make a reasoned argument, not just concern trolling, and people will stop calling you a SJW. BTW : you'll have to accept meritocracy and human agency, so you'll have to accept that not everything needs to respect population quotas. STEM having 90% male is not wrong, as long as it's a choice made by all involved parties.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Of all of Slashdots user base (UIDs are up to, what, 3 million now?) you are one of about 3 who I'd call an SJW. There's a reason people keep calling you that - you in particular.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Mea culpa, I should have said the ratio of men to women in CS, not in university in general.
Finally stand tall?
The rest of my point stands.
No, it doesn't. Your point devolves into cherry picking the smaller disparity in spite of the larger one. Don't you want to know why so many more women are in college? Why do you only care about a rather small subset of this where you can call foul on the opposite disparity?
(see my sig for what I think of that)
You've already proven the value of your thought processes. The next sjw story you will again be there waving your hands, making the exact same mistakes. Today isnt the first time you've made these. Hell its not even the second time.
"His name was James Damore."
Indeed I am. Research suggests it is mostly due to negative stereotypes and only somewhat unfounded fears of being suspected of paedophilia.
We call that Male Privileged. Nobody cares about that side of things, even you.
Indeed I am. I haven't had much time to look into this
Mutually exclusive statement, rendering the excuse false. If you were interested, you would have ALREADY looked into it. You haven't, so I can presume that you're not that interested.
Indeed I am. I'd say this one is less about employment and more about the portrayal of women in fashion and advertisin
I'd say you don't have a clue what you're talking about so you're winging the answer based upon your own biases.
Incorrect. It's more of an institutional problem. ... it's just a legacy of millennia of history.
Actually, it isn't an institutional problem. It is a Gender difference problem. It is why girls tend to prefer dolls to trucks, and boys tend to prefer trucks to dolls. It doesn't have to do with social norms and other bullshit ideas. The fact is, boys/men are different from girls/women. While there are exceptions to gender preferences, we see those show up in these stats, girls/women don't prefer STEM courses, and boys/men do not prefer teaching kindergarten, but there are some who do.
The great thing about America, which the SJW can't seem to wrap their heads around, is that we are Free to choose, rather be imposed upon by SJW ideals. At least for now. The fact is, "Norms" are that way for a reason, something that obviously offends SJWs to no end.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
but there is actually a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Citation Needed.
I'm trying to make a reasoned argument, but you make absolute statements
False, I made a reasoned argument. You are the one making absolute statements. You made the statement it was because one gender is being institutionally repressed, and that it is due to systemic problems and social pressure. And we are supposed to accept that as FACT from you.
There is no reasoning with you, you are the same way on all these discussions. You literally bring the rageposts everywhere you go.
I don't know where the rage comes from exactly.
Look in the mirror. It comes from your polarizing language and you constant demeaning and assault on the current crop of IT/CS engineers, calling them "a problem" (aka, Brogrammer culture idiocy). Stop calling everyone who disagrees there even is a problem "part of the problem", and maybe you'll get more open mindedness.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM