gendered synthetic voices

[Joe Pickett]

There's an article in today's NYTimes that discusses the reasoning and
research behind the synthetic voices we all will be hearing soon on the web
and on computers in cars and elsewhere, asking us questions about options
and telling us what we ought to do and where we ought to go.

It seems the people behind the voices are trying to tie into stereotypes in
order to ensure success.  Clifford Nass at Stanford is one of the
researchers mentioned:
"It's a well-established finding that people take praise from males more
          seriously than praise from females,"

It seems like a grim business to me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/12/technology/12VOIC.html


Joe