Transcript
Mastodon posts by @trenchworms@eldritch.cafe:
super revealing of the misogyny inherent to the space that "AI assistants" stopped being given feminine-coded names the moment tech chuds thought they were developing higher levels of autonomy
"i TELL Alexa what to do. i COLLABROATE with Chudbot. i will not reflect on this hierarchy at all."
Siri's default voice is female and all of the early advertising used that same female presentation.
Cortana was female.
I didn't know if Google's original voice assistant had a name, but it's voice was also distinctly female — and still is, Google maps (and other android apps with voice assistance, probably) continues to use that same voice.
I pointed this out in another post but Cortana is also a "higher level" AI in her depiction origins (Halo) which is inherently a counterpoint to the OP's post anyways...
Her depictions in Halo, sure. But the Cortana on your laptop wasn't outsmarting ancient alien AIs or helping you murder hordes of genocidal aliens. She was there to make calendar appointments and search Amazon for the cheapest toilet paper. That's a big fucking difference.
You... understand the Cortana on windows is literally named as a reference to Cortana from Halo right? Because Microsoft owns Halo...? They named it from her... So its the same "Cortana" so to say.
Its a fundamental counterpoint to the OPs post, because it wasn't made feminine as some kind of mental gymnastics misogyny thing, its just a nerdy reference to an already existing character Microsoft had the rights to, its not that deep.