This is a positive step forward as it allows people to choose the voice that they prefer without the defaults bias coming into play. I believe that this is the first of these assistants to make the choice completely agnostic with no default selection made. The beta version should be live now and available to program participants. This means that every person setting up Siri will choose a voice for themselves and it will no longer default to the voice assistant being female, a topic that has come up quite a bit with regards to bias in voice interfaces over the past few years. Apple is adding two new voices to Siri’s English offerings, and eliminating the default “female voice” selection in the latest beta version of iOS.
