A Denmark-based team has created a voice nicknamed Q designed to be perceived as neither male or female.Barking orders at a digital device that responds in a woman's voice can reinforce sexist stereotypes, according to academics and creatives who launched the first gender-neutral artificial intelligence voice on Monday.
Responding to such concerns, a Denmark-based team has created a voice nicknamed Q that was presented at the South by Southwest creative festival in Texas and is designed to be perceived as neither male or female. "There is no reason that a voice has to be gendered," said Julie Carpenter, a research fellow in the ethics and emerging sciences group at California State Polytechnic University, who advised the project Q team.Leading digital assistants such as Apple's Siri, the Amazon Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana are generally presented as female, Carpenter told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.