AUDIO: THE GENDERLESS VOICE ASSISTANT
So you’ve got one of those Alexas or Siris and you’re thinking, “This is great, but I’m offended because my voice assistant never had a chance to define itself in terms of its gender.” Well, now you can. Researchers from a company called Copenhagen Pride have created what they call the world’s first non-binary A.I. voice. They call it “Q”, a gender neutral-sounding computerized voice that’s neither male nor female. After testing the voice on 4,600 people, they determined that this voice is perceived as neither male nor female. The company believes the Q voice will help combat “harmful and often very limiting gender stereotypes.”
* Oh, brother. Or sister. You know, I don’t know what I mean anymore, this world has gone crazy.
* The voice is fine, but I think naming it Q is biased toward a certain offensive alphabetical stereotype.
* Plus, here comes the lawsuit from the James Bond producers.
* If they want a genderless voice, why not just make it sound like Stewie from “Family Guy”?
* Or that castrated bald guy on “Game of Thrones”.
* Copenhagen Pride? The people who make the chewing tobacco?
CLIP: Q introduces itself. Do you hear this voice as male or female?
