The Guardian view on female voice assistants: not OK, Google

The annoying thing about this is if the voice was default male, people would scream "PATRIARCHY", whereas if the voice was default female people would scream "STEREOTYPE" (or similar). Can't win.

"In some markets, Britain among them, Google offers a male voice for its assistant, though Alexa and Siri are always female."

The default for British English users is male for Siri. To be specific, Siri defaults to a male voice for Arabic, French, Dutch and British English.

>When computer assistants reply in female voices, are they saying that women lack power in their world?

No.

You can change the voice...

It seems like people are just looking for things to complain about.

I don't like the bias.

The voice I use the most for my projects now is "Ivy" from AWS which sounds like a Yordle from League of Legends that has been huffing helium. "Ivy" is gendered but cartoony enough that I don't think there is a trace of sexual submission there.

Now all I need is a voice that sounds like Lester Holt when he's been huffing Sulfur Hexaflouride and I'll have my head maid and my head butler.