Hello Alexa

the latest faux problem that the UN has decided to fix is the female voices of Alexa and other computer devices.

PJMedia reports:

The Wall Street Journal  notes:

The revelation about this digital plot for male dominance comes in a 146-page report from the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in cooperation with the German government and the EQUALS Skills Coalition, a partnership of governments, businesses and nonprofits."

The authors note with alarm that “most leading voice assistants are exclusively female or female by default, both in name and in sound of voice.” This includes Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and  Microsoft ’s Cortana. The report says that these voices send “a signal that women are obliging, docile, eager-to-please helpers, available at the touch of a button or with a blunt voice command like ‘hey’ or ‘OK.’” Read on, they’re rolling."

If you tell Cortana she’s hot, the report frets, she’ll quip that “beauty is in the photoreceptors of the beholder.” Digital assistants “greet verbal abuse with catch-me-if-you-can flirtation” and “give deflecting, lacklustre, or apologetic responses to verbal sexual harassment,” the report says. This response fails “to encourage or model, let alone insist on, healthy communications about sex or sexual consent.”

I believe the origin of the female voice dates back to the verbal warnings in US Air Force planes: often pilots ignored the male voice because they assumed it was just one of the crew saying something. So thcy changed to a female voice which was easier to notice.

and, of course, in StarTrek, the computer spoke with a female voice because the computer had been designed on a planet run by women.