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Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by IshKebab on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @08:52AM (#45115109)
I agree. For some reason the female voices are waaay more convincing than the male ones too, which sound barely better than speech synthesis from a decade ago.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by selkin on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @10:54AM (#45116546)
Results correlate to investment, and there’s more in synthesizing female coded voices. As for the why female coded voices gets more investments, we all know, only difference is in attitude towards that (the correct answer, of course, is “it sucks”)
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by recursive on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @11:56AM (#45117249)
We all know? Female voices have better intelligibility? That's my guess anyway.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by selkin on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @12:11PM (#45117432)
If you don't know, it's on you to learn. If you do know and prefer to make an asshole of yourself, that's also on you.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by kadoban on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @12:34PM (#45117761)
There's a lot of money and effort spent in satisfying the sexual desires of (predominantly straight) men. There's not typically quite as much interest in doing the same for women.

For example I've been looking at models and loras for generating images, and the boards are _full_ of ones that will generate women well or in some particular style. Quite often at least a couple of the preview images for each are hidden behind a button because they contain nudity. Clearly the intent is that they are at least able to generate porn containing women. There's a small handful that are focused on men and they're very aware of it, they all have notes lampshading how oddball they are to even exist.

I would expect that this is not as pronounced an effect in the world generating speech, but it must still exist.

Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by lacy_tinpot on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @03:09PM (#45119407)
I think this is a very lazy kind of cultural analysis. The reason female voices are being chosen over male ones is a little more multifaceted than just SEX. Heterosexual women also tend to prefer female voices over male ones.

Female voices are often rated as being clearer, easier to understand, "warmer", etc.

Why this is the case is still an open question, but it's definitely more complex than just SEX.

Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by selkin on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @05:44PM (#45120715)
That you consider it sex (rather than gender), is exactly why there’s a preference for female coded voices. Consider where we do hear male recorded voices used as default.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by recursive on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @05:57PM (#45120820)
Overloaded term. It was a reference to the parent's reference.

> satisfying the sexual desires of

So, "sex" as a reference to "sexual desires". In English, it just so happens that "sex" has other meanings, but those weren't in play at the time.

Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by pylotlight on Thursday September 04, 2025 @01:00AM (#45123747)
woosh
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by akimbostrawman on Thursday September 04, 2025 @02:54AM (#45124345)
How the hell would you determine someone's self assigned social gender based on there voice which is a result of there physical sex.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by kadoban on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @09:58PM (#45122634)
I don't think that this is the only factor, I just suspect that it is _a_ factor.
Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by lacy_tinpot on Thursday September 04, 2025 @05:44PM (#45132575)
>There's not typically quite as much interest in doing the same for women.

Women also prefer female voices.

Re:Microsoft VibeVoice: A Frontier Open-Source Text-to-Speec... by kadoban on Sunday September 07, 2025 @05:34PM (#45162390)
Okay. I'd happily believe that, it doesn't contradict what I said.

The quote you have from me is from this context:

> There's a lot of money and effort spent in satisfying the sexual desires of (predominantly straight) men. There's not typically quite as much interest in doing the same for women.

In that context, your response is impossible to respond to. Do you even disagree with what I said or do you (like me) just think that there are other factors in addition?

Any particular reason you're being kind of a dick btw?