Or is it both?
It also renamed the voices, giving them numbers instead of binary gender labels.
The next stage of that change will come with the next release of iOS.
Viktor Talashuk / Unsplash
Jordan McDonald / Unsplash
This is good news for a few reasons.
Non-binary is just as appropriate for machines as it is for humans.
it’s possible for you to hear aclip of the new voice here.
Jordan McDonald / Unsplash
Like Siri’s other voices, it’s clearly a recorded human voice.
Perception
It’s not just computers that are moving away from the binary-gendered default.
That’s good news, but computer voices are a special case.
More specifically, we like to perceive them as human, and like us.
This latest voice is, in some ways, just another personalization option.
And with devices that are so personal to us, that’s an important feature.
Expectations
It’s also an easy way to bring important gender-neutral options to a platform.
And while this is great, it’s only a start.
