Gender Biases in Error Mitigation by Voice Assistants

Abstract

Commercial voice assistants are largely feminized and associated with stereotypically feminine traits such as warmth and submissiveness. As these assistants continue to be adopted for everyday uses, it is imperative to understand how the portrayed gender shapes the voice assistant's ability to mitigate errors, which are still common in voice interactions. We report a study (N=40) that examined the effects of voice gender (feminine, ambiguous, masculine), error mitigation strategies (apology, compensation) and participant's gender on people's interaction behavior and perceptions of the assistant. Our results show that AI assistants that apologized appeared warmer than those offered compensation. Moreover, male participants preferred apologetic feminine assistants over apologetic masculine ones. Furthermore, male participants interrupted AI assistants regardless of perceived gender more frequently than female participants when errors occurred. Our results suggest that the perceived gender of a voice assistant biases user behavior, especially for male users, and that an ambiguous voice has the potential to reduce biases associated with gender-specific traits.