It’s certainly from a psychological standpoint, but also a little depressing that so many people have this “soft spot” that can be exploited.
I think that’s a little too focused of a statement. I think that people prefer “female” AIs for legitimate purposes, too. For example, Siri, Alexa, Cortana, and Google’s voice assistant all default to female voices.
There is one particular female text-to speech voice that I’ve heard on Facebook so often that I’ve grown to hate it.
Jarvis being the notable exception.
And a new one just found in my “reel”. Never mind how the video assumes people have never heard of microwaving a marshmallow–the text-to-speech engine has no clue how to pronounce “microwave”.
The Economist had an article a few months ago where people in different parts of the world rated a hundred languages on various linguistic features and how beautiful they sounded.
Most languages were, astonishingly, rated about the same. People mildly disliked certain linguistic features. But the biggest effect was that everyone preferred female speakers. Since the language source was a bible film featuring five native speakers that had been translated into many, many languages… one presumes this is innate, and not just selling the sizzle.
Not surprising, really.
Most people, during their earliest years as babies & toddlers, hear mostly female voices. Their trusted feeders, comforters & caretakers. And that is the time when humans are doing their most concentrated learning of basic cultural norms.
So it seems quite understandable that people are more inclined to like and trust female voices.
I think there might also be some element of men finding female voices sexy, while women find male voices threatening.