Technology
Apple Siri’s New Voice Will Be Reportedly More Gender-Neutral
UNESCO reports may have played a part in this move that can prevent projection towards women.
Apple is reportedly bringing in a new voice as their Voice 5. The release of iOS 15.4, the beta version, reveals a new option under Siri. Apple told Axios that this was the voice of “a member of the LGBTQ+ community.”
The voice has a noticeable mix of both male and female tones in it.
A quick comparison of Siri’s new voice with the existing four options pic.twitter.com/A7uLQeLvQw
— jon.porter (@JonPorty) February 23, 2022
Apple has also stopped using a female voice as the default Siri choice after a UN agency’s complaint.
A report released by UNESCO points out that female voice as default technological helper “carries a risk of spreading problematic gender stereotypes and regularizing one-sided, command-based verbal exchanges with women.”
“Answers provided by voice assistants tend to be blunt and presented without texture, context, or explanatory information,” the report continued.
And as users project these voices as women, “it does not seem particularly far-fetched to wonder whether this behavior of female voice assistants creates expectations and reinforces assumptions that women should provide simple, direct, and unsophisticated answers to basic questions, and refer complex questions to higher authorities.”
