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How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

openai.com

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Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#61

Post by glimshe »

nacnud wrote: post #25

As a British person, I find all the current OpenAI voices have overly strong (American) accents, which are way too perky/enthusiastic for my ears. It would be great if they could offer a more neutral accent, or even one British accent? (Example: Voice 5 from pi.ai is excellent, IMHO)

Some British accents, in particular outside of London, can be almost unintelligible to general English speakers.

There is nothing intrinsically neutral about the British accent, it's more a matter of diction from the speaker. I would also not consider the OpenAI accents as neutral American, feels more like "Young Californian adult woman" accent to me.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#63

Post by carroted »

thomashop wrote: post #35
GaggiX wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. To be honest, this HN thread was the first time I saw someone complaining about male and female voices in ChatGPT. >A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. The voice actors and actresses hired by OpenAI use their natural voices for training, I…

> To be honest, that HN thread was the first time I saw someone complaining about male and female voices in ChatGPT. It's the fifth place I've seen it since yesterday. And I haven't been looking. Even my mum sent me a Guardian article about it on Whatsapp. Daily show: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/51ucQ4s7Crc In my opinion, they should have hired a trans person, created a gender-neutral voice, and used that as the d…

That's still going to be either a female or male voice isn't it? Based on the fact that the person providing the voice is either female or male.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#64

Post by jareklupinski »

datahack wrote: post #6

Am I the only one that really dislikes these overly perky voices? And the one they used for the demo was GOD AWFUL. If this is what the future sounds like… idk. I was hoping for a calm, neutral and not eager assistant with a little class. A little Jarvis maybe? Something calm and easy on the ears. These all sounded to me like people auditioning for a role in film and television or something.

i want jonah jameson from the spiderman movies yelling things at me

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#65

Post by MrSkelter »

glimshe wrote: post #61
nacnud wrote: post #25

As a British person, I find all the current OpenAI voices have overly strong (American) accents, which are way too perky/enthusiastic for my ears. It would be great if they could offer a more neutral accent, or even one British accent? (Example: Voice 5 from pi.ai is excellent, IMHO)

Some British accents, in particular outside of London, can be almost unintelligible to general English speakers. There is nothing intrinsically neutral about the British accent, it's more a matter of diction from the speaker. I would also not consider the OpenAI accents as neutral American, feels more like "Young Californian adult woman" accent to me.

You don’t seem to have a point. Thick accents are unintelligible regardless of source.

The UK has more distinct accents than the US. However RP English, which was popular in an American form as “mid Atlantic” last century, is almost impossible for any English speaker to misconstrue thanks to its emphasis on clear diction. British actors have been proving that in the US for over a century. No one needs subtitles to understand Hugh Grant. Standard US accents frequently fail the merry, marry, Mary test and are worse overall.

Even us Americans know this. The classic, original, beloved voice of the NY subway was a British guy faking a “flat” American accent.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#66

Post by thomashop »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #52
thomashop wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name, it’s 2024, so why not keep the gender out of it? The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. I'm happy if advertising stops hitting the sexy/cliched stereotype…

> A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. How do you manage to be annoyed when they offer both male and female voices? I think you're the problem here buddy.

I was referring to the default being a sexy female. Maybe it makes sense because the majority of users are male but I guess that's what I'd like to see change.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#67

Post by xdennis »

msoad wrote: post #3

Berlin famously casted a gender neutral voice for public transport announcements. It would be nice if OpenAI would have done that too. At least for one of the options. Computers better not have genders imo

> Berlin famously casted a gender neutral voice for public transport announcements.

The person in question is transsexual. You're saying that regular men and women aren't neutral but transsexuals are?

> Computers better not have genders imo

This doesn't make any sense. Gender is an intrinsic part of many languages which cannot be ripped out. It's impossible to talk in some languages without picking a way of speaking which is either masculine or feminine.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#68

Post by th0ma5 »

easymodex wrote: post #40
th0ma5 wrote: post #34

From their Discord server: > @ everyone We’ve heard questions about how we chose the voices in ChatGPT, especially Sky. We are working to pause the use of Sky while we address them. Read more about how we chose these voices [link above, but no further details]

Wow, so they actually got bullied into removing the voice? What a world. I actually liked that voice or at least didn't find any issue with it, they are all perky assistant type voices, but why not? Adding extra choices is fine if people want it, but removing the voice due to loud minority effect is just sad.

I don't agree with this outlook at all and I think it is apparent they took cues from sexual fantasies to be honest.

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#69

Post by xdennis »

thomashop wrote: post #15
iLoveOncall wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name, it’s 2024, so why not keep the gender out of it? The why question is easily answered if you see how many negative reactions their choice of voice caused. A gender-neutral voice would have just avoided annoying a certain percentage of the population, including me. I'm happy if advertising stops hitting the sexy/cliched stereotype…

> Because assigning genders to computers makes as much sense as giving your toaster a name

I don't know if you speak a language with genders, I assume you don't. A computer personality needs a gender in some languages in order to talk naturally about itself.

For example, if it needs to answer a question with "I'm not sure." In Romanian it would say "Nu-s sigur." for a male personality or "Nu-s sigură." for female. There is no other option.

> it’s 2024

You know a position is bad when it's justified by "it's current year".

Re: How the voices for ChatGPT were chosen

#70

Post by thomashop »

iLoveOncall wrote: post #54
thomashop wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be honest, that HN thread was the first time I saw someone complaining about male and female voices in ChatGPT. It's the fifth place I've seen it since yesterday. And I haven't been looking. Even my mum sent me a Guardian article about it on Whatsapp. Daily show: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/51ucQ4s7Crc In my opinion, they should have hired a trans person, created a gender-neutral voice, and used that as the d…

> In my opinion, they should have hired a trans person, created a gender-neutral voice, and used that as the default. Estimates for the percentage of transgender people is between 0.1% and 0.6% of the global population. OpenAI offers 5 voices. I'd say it's perfectly statistically representative of the population. Also the voice "Breeze" sounds gender-neutral to me.

Yeah, upon reflection, I'm not sure if my suggestion is the best.

Just, the default subservient, sexy female assistant doesn't help this technology's inclusivity.

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