Siri, Alexa, Cortana: When AI speaks, why always a woman's voice?

Recently it emerged that Amazon has a team of employees who listen to some of the things we say to devices powered by the Alexa digital assistant. — dpa

The big three are all female. Apple's AI is called Siri, a Scandinavian female name. Amazon's smart assistant isn't Alexander, it's called Alexa. Google's may not have a name, but it's voice certainly is feminine.

"Voice assistants are the maidservants of our time," remarks Holger Schulz, a professor of musicology and head of the Sound Studies Lab at the University of Copenhagen, in a recent segment on the culture programme of the German public radio station Deutschlandfunk. "The digital maidservants in today's world solidify and perpetuate gender hierarchies, unequal treatment and exploitation."