A Necessary Reflection on the Voices of AI Assistants

Voices are omnipresent in our daily lives, from the self-checkout machines at the supermarket to our beloved virtual assistants like Siri, Alexa, or Cortana. We interact with these voices regularly, and they may even annoy us when they fail to play the requested song. Yet, amidst this familiarity, we often overlook a significant fact: all these voices that guide us are female.

Clifford Nass, a pioneer in creating digital assistance, stated that people perceive female voices as helping us solve problems without imposing a solution, unlike male voices. This perspective reveals that people still see women as assistants, not as figures capable of imposing, unlike men.

Throughout history, women have been the ones who assist, solve, accompany, create, drive, and do the unimaginable to solve others' problems in any way we can. When we hear the voices of AI assistants, we unconsciously turn to that feminine figure that, even with its tone of voice, gives us the feeling that everything will be okay. This reflects the deeply ingrained societal roles that women have played, and it is not a coincidence. The masterminds who designed these tools are well aware of this, and their influence is felt in many people's lives worldwide.

However, the other side of the coin shows that even in this new technological era, with the advent of AI, people still regard women as assistants to whom anyone can give orders. The issue runs deep and has many layers to analyze from different angles.

There will probably be those who argue that it is a coincidence that the female voice is better understood or sounds more pleasant.

I want to plant a seed of thought on this topic with you today. After a thoughtful analysis and subsequent conversation in your circles, I hope you can share your conclusions in this post. Let's enrich each other's understanding, recognizing that, as always, perspective shapes our reality.