What’s Behind Technology’s Disembodied Female Voices?

And yet, perhaps after simply being confronted with the possibility of Jessie’s demise, I’ve developed a new fondness for her. Jessie doesn’t pretend to be the ideal woman; she has less in common with the imperfectly perfect Alexa than she does the deep, resonant and pompously put-on voice of authority that Laurie Anderson cultivated in the speech that emerged in her innovative music in the 1980s. (Here’s some…